
Glass J|v Tl7 
Book u S I 



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THE WAR AND AFTER 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

THE SUBSTANCE OF FAITH, ALLIED 
WITH SCIENCE 

MAN AND THE UNIVERSE 

THE SURVIVAL OF MAN 

REASON AND BELIEF 

MODERN PROBLEMS 



THE WAR AND AFTER 

SHORT CHAPTERS ON SUBJECTS 

OF SERIOUS PRACTICAL IMPORT 

FOR THE AVERAGE CITIZEN 

IN A.D. 1915 ONWARDS 



BY 

SIR OLIVER LODGE, F.R.S. 

h 

Principal of the University of Birmingham 



FIFTH EDITION 



METHUEN & CO. LTD. 

36 ESSEX STREET W.C 

LONDON 



? 






First Published August 6th IQ15 

Second and Third Editions . August IQ15 

Fourth Edition September 1915 

Fifth Edition October 1975 



PREFACE 

THE Workers' Educational Association, 
and other organizations, have provided or 
recommended for their students a large 
supply of historical literature connected with 
the war, and it may be hoped that much of it 
is being read by those whose voting power — 
surely under some strange providential guidance 
— helps to control the conduct of this country's 
affairs. But the mass of material is so great, 
and the time for reading so short, that an 
attempt to concentrate attention on special 
points and to emphasize some of the more 
pressing and practical features of the present 
difficult but hopeful situation, may be useful. 
It is with this sole but very serious aim that 
the following chapters have been written. 

As I have no pretension to be an historian 
I shall often quote from other writers when deal - 
ing with historical facts and national characters. 
Of all the readily accessible treatises dealing 
with the crisis, perhaps the most noteworthy 
anticipation of current events and impartial 
survey of the national characteristics which 
have led to the present outburst is contained 
in a book called The Anglo-German Problem, 



vi THE WAR AND AFTER 

written well before the outbreak of hostilities 
and published in 191 2 by that distinguished 
Belgian, Dr. Charles Sarolea, Head of the 
French Department of the University of 
Edinburgh. I shall quote a few passages from 
this book to illustrate the clear knowledge pos- 
sessed by experts a few years ago. 

As to the rights and wrongs of the diplomacy 
preceding this war, our own case is so clear 
and strong, and so emphasized by our just and 
honourable — but as it turns out lamentable — 
unpreparedness, that only a few people here 
and there, misled by false statements, can re- 
quire a legal argument to prove it ; I do 
not touch on this subject, but note that 
an able summing-up by a Swiss -American 
jurist exists, in a book called The Evidence 
in the Case, by the Hon. James M. Beck, 
LL.D., of New York, with a Preface by the 
ex -American Ambassador to this country, 
Mr. Choate. The book was published by 
Putnam's Sons early in 191 5, and is fiercely 
interesting. 

Only one other tract will I mention here — 
though from others I may quote — and that is 
the pamphlet by Professor Gilbert Murray 
entitled How Can War Ever be Right? which I 
hope will be read by all premature pacifists. 

It is highly desirable at the present time 
to preserve our mental balance. We must, 
it is true, denounce in measured terms the in- 
human atrocities which have been authorita- 



PREFACE vii 

tively sanctioned and enforced on helpless 
victims, and the campaign of lies and slander 
with which neutral nations have been affronted 
by diplomatists to whom every trace of the 
saving sense of humour seems to be denied ; 
and we must sorrowfully admit that the attitude 
of those politicians and rulers is approved and 
followed by droves of misguided patriots. Yet 
we should earnestly endeavour to distinguish 
between these recent outgrowths of unholy sub- 
servience to a dominating clique, and the more 
permanent and friendly aspect of the European 
nations with which we are at war. We should 
bear continually in mind — hard though it often 
be — the services to humanity, and the lovable, 
friendly, and homely past aspects of the 
majority of our present foes. What real quarrel 
have we with Austria, with the peasants of 
Bavaria, with the Rhine provinces, with 
Hanover, or with the down -trodden Prussian 
Poles ? 

To mention no others, we actually have to 
reckon the Tyrolese among our foes at the 
present time — they are furnishing sharpshooters 
to the German army ; and in other only less 
flagrant cases we are being slain at the call of 
duty by those who are essentially our friends. 
To assist them in doing their duty, which else 
must be repulsive, a campaign of hate has 
been artificially fostered. This dementia is not 
reciprocated, and it would be ludicrous were 
its consequences not likely to be so serious 



viii THE WAR AND AFTER 

to those of our number who happen to fall 
helpless into the hands of a temporarily insane 
people. 

But, while admitting with sad astonishment 
the terrible Downfall in moral status which has 
been the accompaniment of half a century's 
aim at World Power, let us see to it that we 
remember our own shortcomings also ; and 
while proclaiming fully and fairly that they are 
of a kind differing toto ccelo from those with 
which we are contending, yet admit sorrowfully 
enough that we might have done far better in 
the past, and hope that we may have wisdom 
and resolution enough to do better in the future. 

O. J. L. 

May 191 5 



England ! the time is come when thou should'st wean 

Thy heart from its emasculating food ; 

The truth should now be better understood ; 

Old things have been unsettled ; we have seen 

Fair seed-time, better harvest might have been 

But for thy trespasses ; . . . 

England ! all nations in this charge agree : 

But worse, more ignorant in love and hate, 

Ear — far more abject, is thine Enemy : 

Therefore the wise pray for thee, though the freight 

Of thy offences be a heavy weight. 

Oh grief that Earth's best hopes rest all with Thee ! 

Wordsworth, Sonnet XXI 



CONTENTS 



PREFACE 



PAGE 
V 



PART I 



THE PAST 

CHAPTER 

I. THE GREAT AGE OF GERMAN PHILOSOPHY . 

II. GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS : THEIR STRENGTH AND 
WEAKNESS .... 

III. REVULSION TOWARDS MATERIALISM 

IV. REVOLT AGAINST CHRISTIANITY 
V. MORAL POWER OF NATIONS . 

VI. MODERN GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 

VII. A CONFLICT OF IDEALS 

VIII. TWO FALLACIES 

IX. GERMANY AND ENGLAND : GERMAN ATTITUDE 

X. ENGLAND AND GERMANY : ENGLISH ATTITUDE 

xi 



9 
13 

21 
27 

33 
43 
53 
59 
7i 



Xll 



THE WAR AND AFTER 



PART II 
THE PRESENT 

CHAPTER 

XI. "S.O.S." WHAT IS THE WAR FOR? 

XII. MATERIAL EFFICIENCY AND SELF-INTEREST 

XIII. EVIL OR AGGRESSIVE WAR . 

XIV. SAVAGERY . 

XV. NON-RESISTANCE AND DEFENSIVE WAR 

XVI. CHRISTIANITY AND PACIFISM 
XVII. " LOVE YOUR ENEMIES" 



PART III 
THE FUTURE 



XVIII. THE OUTCOME ..... I37 

XIX. ON THE DULNESS OF WAR, AND ITS CIVILIAN 

ASPECT, AND ON EFFECTIVE NEUTRALITY . I42 

XX. SOCIAL UNREST . . . . . 149 

XXI. INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS . ,. ' . .159 

XXII. SOCIAL REFORM ...... 170 

XXIII. TASK OF HUMANITY . . . . . l8j 



CONTENTS 



xm 



CHAPTER 

XXIV. PEACE AND DISARMAMENT 

XXV. NATIONAL REARRANGEMENT 

XXVI. THE FUTURE OF EUROPE . 

XXVII. OTHER HOME REFORMS 

XXVIII. CONCLUSION 

INDEX TO QUOTATIONS 

INDEX 



PAGE 

• 193 

. I98 

. 206 

. 215 

. 228 

• 233 

• 237 



PART I 

THE PAST 

Corruptio optimi pessitna 



In a democratic country of thirty-six millions it 
may seem infinitely unimportant what one individual 
does or thinks, as compared with what in an auto- 
cracy one man, and that the irresponsible ruler, does 
or thinks ; yet the fate of the democratic country 
depends clearly enough upon the collective effect of 
the views and character of each one of her individual 
citizens ; and whilst there is here less danger of a 
selfish policy, through the obvious difficulty or com- 
bination for such an end, and through the necessary 
conflict of interests, there is more danger of apathy, 
through each man thinking that these things are not 
his concern. — E. de Selincourt. 



THE WAR AND AFTER 



CHAPTER I 

THE GREAT AGE OF GERMAN 
PHILOSOPHY 

WHY is the world so horrified at the out- 
burst of savagery which has now oc- 
curred ? Because it is a blasphemous 
prostitution of high gifts and a dragging in the 
mire of a noble Past. The old Germany was 
full of attraction for thoughtful Englishmen : 
it had much that was consoling amid the welter 
of trade and politics and business and sport 
which seemed to saturate the British atmosphere. 
The peacefully social and calmly learned sur- 
roundings of Germany were restful, and it could 
really be regarded as a spiritual home. 

Briefly let me try to illustrate, by a very few 
extracts from German literature, the kind of 
shock which must have been experienced by 
those who have been well acquainted with the 
Germany of the past. 

The greatest Teutonic names in Philosophy 
are surely those of Kant, Fichte, and Hegel. A 
few short extracts from these writers will give 
an idea of the peaceful absorption in which they 
lived and worked, and show how far the country 
was in its greatness from the Prussianized 
Germany of to-day. 

3 



4 THE PAST 

Modern Germany is a young nation, and 
" may be said to have had a sober youth. She 
has been blamed for culpable absent-minded- 
ness and absorption in mystic speculation, while 
other nations were stealing a march upon her 
in exploiting the habitable world. I believe," 
says J. H. Muirhead, " that never was she 
truer to herself." 

In remote Konigsberg, in Eastern Prussia, 
on a monument to the memory of Immanuel 
Kant, the first sentence of perhaps the greatest 
passage written by him is inscribed, in which 
the two immensities of Nature and Spirit are 
held together as for a moment for men to con- 
template. 

" Two things, the longer and oftener I con- 
template them, fill my soul with ever new and 
ever growing awe — the starry heavens above 
me and the moral law within me. 

"I cannot regard either of them as veiled in 
darkness, or as belonging to some transcen- 
dental realm beyond the range of my percep- 
tion. I see them before me. I connect them 
directly with the consciousness of my own being. 

" The first of them begins from the position I 
occupy in the world of sense. It extends my 
connexion therewith into an immeasurable 
space — with world upon worlds and systems 
upon systems — with the boundless time of their 
periodic motions, their beginning and their 
duration . 

" The second begins from my invisible self, 
from my personality. It places me in a world 
which has true infinitude, whose outlines only 
the understanding can trace, and with which 
my connexion is not merely accidental, as it 
is with the world of sense: my relation to it is 
universal and necessary. 



GREAT GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 5 

" The vision of the first nullifies my im- 
portance. I am but a brute creature, which 
has borrowed the material of which it is made, 
and must give it back again to the planet on 
which it lives — the planet itself hardly more than 
a speck in the vast universe. But the vision 
of the second raises my worth beyond all 
limitations. It exhibits me as a being which 
has mind, and is endowed with personality. In 
me is revealed the moral law, which shows me 
independent of all animality and of the whole 
world of sense, accepting neither conditions nor 
bounds but pointing onwards to infinitude." 

And Sir Henry Jones, commenting on this 
passage and on the philosophy of Kant 
generally, in his Provincial Assembly Lecture 
191 2, on "The Immanence of God and the 
Individuality of Man," writes thus : — 

' The world of sense is now being re- 
valuated : the whole scheme, including man, is 
being interpreted anew. It is maintained, with 
a confidence which is growing, that sense and 
the things of sense, and the whole scheme of 
finitude, do not obscure but reveal the eternal 
verities. The temporal is not secular any more, 
nor is there anything in this wide world which 
is common and unclean ; unless, alas ! man has 
made it so." 

Such philosophy is by no means barren ; and, 
as a practical outcome, a friendly and co-opera- 
tive federation of humanity is looked forward to 
as an ideal for the future. 

Professor J. H. Muirhead tells us, in his ad- 
mirable little book German Philosophy in 
Relation to the War, that " there dawned upon 
Kant, not as in the Middle Ages as a theological 
dogma or as a legal speculation, nor as with 
some moderns as a poetic dream, but as a 



6 THE PAST 

consequence of a mature philosophical con- 
viction, the possibility of a peaceful federation 
of States, which should replace the present 
transitional phase of armed violence tempered 
by partial and precarious treaties." 

It was this idea that he worked out in his old 
age in the short essay on Eternal Peace. He 
there sets out in the form of preliminary and 
definitive articles the conditions, negative and 
positive, of such a peace. " No treaty of peace 
can be a real one which is made with the secret 
reservation of material for a future war." No 
independent State (great and small are here the 
same) shall be acquired by another, by inherit- 
ance, exchange, purchase, or gift. Standing 
armies shall in time cease. No public debt shall 
be contracted for purposes of external action. 
No State shall forcibly interfere with the Con- 
stitution or Government of another State. No 
State at war with another State shall commit 
such hostile acts as must make mutual trust im- 
possible in a future condition of peace. He 
denounces assassination, poisoning, breaches of 
capitulation, and attempts to make use of 
treachery among the enemy ; and he adds a 
warning against " punitive wars " between 
States, as inconsistent with the idea of political 
right. All these things are the destruction of 
trust between nations. If practised and per- 
sisted in they can only end in a war of exter- 
mination and " the kind of eternal peace that 
would be found in the great graveyard of the 
human race." 

" The fact," says Kant, " that the sense of 
community among the peoples of the earth has 
gone so far that the violation of right in one 
place is felt everywhere, has made the idea of a 
citizenship of the world no fantastic dream, 



GREAT GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 7 

but a necessary extension of the unwritten code 
of States and Peoples." 

To those who regard attempts at permanent 
international friendship as hopeless and Utopian, 
Muirhead would reply that " the essential prin- 
ciple on which we are to go in all politics is 
that the practicable is to be measured by the 
right, and not the right by the practicable. 
We must gradually learn to say in politics as in 
morals, ' I ought, therefore I can.' " 

This also is the view taken by one of Ger- 
many's greatest philosophers : — 

'The binding cord," writes Hegel, "is not 
force, but the deep-seated feeling of order that 
is possessed by us all." He has no words 
strong enough to denounce von Haller — the von 
Treitschke of his time, who had written : "It 
is the eternal unchangeable decree of God that 
the most powerful must rule, and will for ever 
rule," and who had poured contempt on the 
national liberties of Germany and our own 
Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights as '- mere 
documentary liberties." In all this, Hegel 
says, Haller has confused the force of right 
with the right of force. " The power he means 
is not the power of the right, but the power of 
the vulture to tear in pieces the innocent lamb." 

"- War is not the sequel, it is the failure of 
politics. The sequel of politics is art, science, 
religion — all that goes to make what Aristotle 
called the good life — for the full development 
of which the State is the essential condition. 
But the State is far from supreme. Above and 
beyond the State there is the spirit of the 
World, which is also the spirit of God, before 
which all things are judged : The history of 
the world is the judgment of the world " (a 
saying usually attributed to Schiller). 



8 THE PAST 

Wherefore, says Hegel again, looking for- 
ward to the future, " let us together greet the 
dawn of a better time, when the spirit that has 
hitherto been driven out may return to itself 
again, and win room and space wherein to 
found a kingdom of its own." 

And so once more back to the anticipation of 
Kant :— 

" We may reasonably hail the Kingdom of 
Heaven as soon as ever the principle has taken 
root generally in the public mind that the efforts 
and creecls of the Churches should all point in 
one direction — all have one aim — a Divine com- 
munity upon this earth. For this principle, 
because it is the motive force of a continual 
striving towards perfection, is like a seed that 
grows up and produces other seed like itself ; and 
thus contains implicitly the whole fabric which 
will one day illuminate and rule the world." 

Finally let us quote the aspiration of Fichte, 
whereby he encouraged his Nation to strive to- 
wards this great end : — 

" All ages, all the wise and good who have 
ever breathed on this earth, all their thoughts 
and aspirations after a Highest, mingle in these 
voices and surround you, and raise supplicating 
hands to you. Even Providence, if one may 
say so, and the Divine plan of the world in the 
creation of a race of man, which indeed only 
exists that it may be taken into men's thoughts 
and brought to reality by them, pleads with 
you to save its honour and its very being." 

To us and the Allies these words might be 
addressed to-day. Alas ! only a lunatic would 
now address them to Germany. 




CHAPTER II 

GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS : 

THEIR STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS 

OW are we to understand the strange 
differences of aim and outlook between 
the Germans and ourselves? An en- 
lightening article by Baron von Hugel in a 
magazine called The Quest for April 1 9 1 5 is 
of considerable help. He speaks of the German 
thirst for theory, and of the English contrary 
habit of shrinking from all systematic thought, 
as specially characteristic : — 

" Theory, system {Weltanschauung), is, for 
the average Englishman, something that in- 
stantly puts him ill at ease, or at least something 
that he disbelieves and avoids ; for the German, 
it is in his very blood. ... It is this innate 
need of system that renders the German steady, 
but also obstinate ; virile and brutal ; profound 
and pedantic ; comprehensive and rich in out- 
look, and rationalist and doctrinaire." 

Germany must be considered a sentimental 
nation. The feeling of patriotism is allowed 
a good deal of sentimental expression. They 
seem to have but little faculty of self-criticism ; 
or perhaps it is the absence of any sense of 
humour that enables them to say and sing 
things, at meetings and suppers and smoking 
concerts, which trend perilously near balder- 



10 THE PAST 

dash. An Irish gathering of the same kind 
is less sentimental and more amusing. 

The Kaiser's speeches are typical of this sort 
of attitude, and, though rather fine, would be 
impossible to any one who realized that he 
was on the verge of making himself ridiculous. 

The ethnologist Dr. A. H. Keane, in The 
Living Races of Mankind, writes : 

" All admit that the German is capable of a 
deep love of nature, of rare poetical feeling, 
and devotion to any cause he may have 
embraced. [But] he is easily led into 
extremes, genuine sentiment becomes over- 
sensitive, anger rises to fury, resentment to 
rancour and hatred, in the pursuit even of noble 
ideals." 

Imperial enthusiasm, however legitimate, 
always seems liable to lead to exaggeration 
and to a trampling on the rights of others. So 
Germanic enthusiasm has been misled, warped, 
and made harmful by the dominating influence 
of Prussia in practical politics ; advantage has 
been taken of current sentiment, and it has 
been applied in practice with untoward and 
bombastic and essentially stupid results. The 
nation has submitted itself unduly to the 
Prussian spirit, but we can trust that the general 
German characteristics will eventually overcome 
this same evil spirit — " a spirit," says von 
Hiigel, " not confined to Germany, and which 
is even more the enemy of the German soul than 
it can ever be of our own military peace." 

The difficult thing to understand, he goes on 
to say, is the thorough and " apparently life- 
and-death allegiance of a people, not only 
highly educated and, in the professional classes, 
mostly awake even unto scepticism, but also, 
surely, incurably idealistic and mystical, to so 



GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS 11 

thoroughly cold and calculating, mechanical and 
cynical, a systefri as is the Prussian Realpolitik, 
with its conception, and largely its practice, of 
a frankly unmoral statesmanship. 

" All men, at least here in England, see and 
know that this frankly Machiavellian policy, 
originally special to the Prussian militarist 
school, is now practised, inculcated, systema- 
tized and assumed by Germany (in so far as 
Germany now operates as a determining, 
political, diplomatic, and military power) with 
a deliberation, preparedness, persistency, and 
ruthlessness, both towards its own German 
instruments and towards its non-German oppo- 
nents, unmatched, on such a scale and amidst 
such civilized peoples, throughout the annals 
of the world." 

The veneer of civilization quickly peels off 
an upstart race and shows the barbarian 
beneath. This is always liable to happen amid 
the stress of war, but it is usually kept in control 
by higher authority. In the present case, how- 
ever, there is no higher authority. The veneer 
of Prussian civilization was so thin it peeled off 
before the war began, and the brutalities were 
contemplated beforehand, and gloated on, and 
carried out, not in defiance of authority, but 
at its dictation. 

In an atmosphere of this kind, Peace Con- 
ferences and all humanitarian talk must indeed 
have seemed absurd, and must have been 
encouraged from cynical motives. By laying 
real restrictions on ourselves, and getting the 
barbarian occasionally to assent to them in 
words, we were virtually playing his game. We 
should not attempt such a thing if we were con- 
templating a battle with savages ; and, most 
unexpectedly, it is a battle with savages that 



12 THE PAST 

we are engaged in — though , unfortunately, 
savages with all the tools and weapons and 
ingenious devices of civilization. Their will 
to use them, moreover, for the slaughter and 
torture of their fellow -man, is sustained and 
intensified and made utterly unscrupulous by 
a heathen religion and a false philosophy. The 
whole civilized world should rise in unison 
against a foe to humanity of this diabolical 
character. 



CHAPTER III 

REVULSION TOWARDS 
MATERIALISM 

THE fact is that Philosophy has a much 
more effective influence on conduct than 
is generally in this country supposed. It 
may not be known by that name ; people may 
imagine that they have no particular philosophy 
of life ; but practically they have, and unless 
they are mere drifting casuals they cannot avoid 
having one — though its formulation is a subject 
for professors. And any country in which as a 
body the educated class loses its independence 
and becomes subservient to State officialism 
is in a parlous condition ; the blind are then 
led by those whose eyes are bandaged. 

It may be thought that to associate recent 
German conduct with materialistic philosophy 
or with a philosophical revolt of any kind is 
far-fetched and absurd. It is not so. But to 
make the position clear may require a little 
technical argument. Ideas are not remote and 
inert things, but are living forces in the minds 
of men, continually influencing character and 
expressing themselves in action. 

So now, as J. H. Muirhead has well said, 
11 What we see confronting each other through- 
out the world are not so much armed hosts 
of men as opposing ideals of life that have 

13 



14 THE PAST 

their root in divergent theories as to the inner 
make of the universe and as to human destiny 
in it. . . . These things have come upon us, 
not because German thought has been faithful 
to its great philosophical tradition, but because 
it has broken away from its spirit and falsified 
its results. It is a story, not of a continuous 
development, but of a reaction — a great re- 
bellion and apostasy." 

Matter and Spirit 

There are two main aspects of the physical 
universe — matter on the, one hand, the ether 
of space on the other.: For all practical pur- 
poses they are distinct, though doubtless ulti- 
mately related. Though distinct in being, they, 
are intimately connected in function ; and all 
activity consists in the transference of energy 
from one to the other, and back again. Static 
energy belongs to the ether, kinetic energy 
belongs to matter ; and in every case of 
activity, when work is done, energy is trans- 
muted from static to kinetic or from kinetic to 
static ; and at the same time it is transferred 
from ether to matter or from matter to ether. 

Alternations sometimes go on rapidly — many 
times in the hundredth of a second ; while in 
other cases energy is stored in one or other 
form for millions of years. The ultimate nature 
of both forms of energy is probably unknown, 
but if either is higher and more fundamental 
than the other, it must be the kinetic form ; 
and the static may ultimately be explicable as 
an aspect of that. Take this apparent digres- 
sion as a parable. 

There are likewise two aspects of the 
Universe as a whole. There may be many 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 15 

more, but there are at least two — the material 
and the spiritual — and all human existence 
depends on the interaction of these two. A 
right appreciation of the universe will attend 
to both these aspects. Wisdom lies in appre- 
ciating them both at their true value and 
recognizing due proportion between them. If 
either is dominant, surely it should be the 
higher — it should be spirit, mind, intelligence, 
soul ; which are not material things, but which 
utilize material things for their manifestation. 
Spirit and Matter appear to be distinct, though 
presumably they are ultimately related ; and 
the activities that we call life and mind depend 
on their connexion, or interaction, through 
nerve and brain mechanism. 

The key-note of the material universe is 
recurrence — operation in cycles — the atoms 
going through various changes, but ultimately 
returning to their initial state ; — a cycle of 
transformation which may be simply typified 
by the evaporation of water from the sea and 
its condensation again as rain. Or again, as 
another example, we may adduce the storage 
of atmospheric ingredients in vegetation under 
the influence of sunshine, — in the form it may 
be of timber or of coal, — and their subsequent 
release during combustion : the same molecules 
being hereafter again acted upon by solar 
radiation in the leaves of plants, and stored 
as vegetable tissue once more. In all such 
cases we see a cycle of recurrence, the atoms 
and the material universe generally being fixed 
and unprogressive. 

Even in the sea, we are now taught that 
sunshine is effective towards life. The sea 
harvest is only second in value to the land 
harvest. Animal life can only feed upon 



18 THE PAST 

vegetable, it cannot directly assimilate material 
from the mineral kingdom ; and vegetation 
itself can only do so under the influence and 
with the aid of the energy of sunlight. Thus, 
as Professor Herdman points out with reference 
to marine organisms, they rise through the 
chain — Inorganic molecules, Diatoms or sea- 
weed, Copepoda, Sprat, Whiting, Cod, Man ; — 
and then fall back to lower organisms and un- 
organized molecules once more, descending 
through the agency of Bacteria to diatoms and 
debris ; a never-ending cycle of changes. 

And, even without special knowledge, 
Recurrence in the physical world is a common- 
place of observation. Day and night succeed 
one another, and summer and winter ; while 
live things go on growing, reaching maturity, 
and then decay. The material parts of these 
also go through a cycle of changes, like seed 
time and harvest and seed time again ; but run- 
ning through the organic world there is a soul 
which ages with the times ; the experience of 
the race is stored in mysterious fashion ; and 
instincts — the growth of ages — excite our 
wonder. The soul of man grows onward, never 
in closed curves : it is as old as time itself. 
In grief and in sorrow, aye and also in love 
and in joy, the world groweth old. 

Thus the keynote of the psychical universe 
is progression ; — movement in spirals it may 
be, but not recurrent, not* cyclical. What may 
be called life, or the soul, utilizes matter to 
advance, to go through a real process of evolu- 
tion. The material is the instrument by aid of 
which, or rather through the passive opposi- 
tion of which, it rises ; rising in the very 
act of overcoming inherent difficulties and 
inertia-like obstruction. We ourselves utilize 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 17 

matter — the matter of this planet, " the dust 
of the earth/'— for the purpose of manifesting 
ourselves, our own personality, our own 
thoughts, our own identity ; which are not 
material, but which utilize matter and make it 
subservient to our needs. 

This is conspicuously done by all artists. 
An artist is one who is specially skilful in 
utilizing matter for purposes of thought, of 
beauty, of something which he cannot other- 
wise convey to the rest of mankind. He 
arranges pigments, or he carves stone, or he 
erects a building, or he makes black marks 
on paper ; and the result is a painting, a 
statue, a cathedral, a poem, or an oratorio. 
The music has to be incarnated in order to be 
appreciated ; the poem has to be heard. In 
itself, as recorded, in its material aspect alone, 
it is nothing but black marks on paper ; and 
indeed the picture is nothing but cunningly 
arranged chemical material — pigments ; and 
yet what a soul is there displayed, what 
emotions are there exhibited ! The thought of 
the artist, the emotion of the artist, is called 
out, not in the matter, but in the receptive 
soul which has the potentiality for thoughts 
and ideas akin to his own ; and thus is 
conveyed to all succeeding generations some- 
thing which the world will not willingly let 
die. Thought is creative — genuinely creative 
— in the sense of bringing into existence things 
which without it would not have been — things 
which are new to the universe ; — and matter 
is the vehicle in which the thought is incarnate 
and made manifest. 

The obstruction which matter offers to the 
artist enables him to put forth effort, calls for 
effort on the part of all of us. We live in a 



18 THE PAST 

world where things are not easy. This utiliza- 
tion of matter is not easy ; matter is obstruc- 
tive ; it has inertia. Difficulties have to be 
overcome, and this is good exercise and train- 
ing. The result is evolution — the rising on 
stepping-stones of matter to higher things. The 
outcome of all the interaction is Life, more Life, 
more fullness and completeness and elevation of 
Life. 

But there is always a danger lest the material 
become dominant and overpower the spiritual, 
whose very existence may, be denied. For just 
as in the physical universe matter is obvious and 
insistent to our senses : Whereas the Ether, no 
matter how substantial it may really be, is in- 
tangible and elusive, so that its existence is 
disbelieved in and denied by the specifically, 
scientific philosophy of modern German 
physicists ; so it is also in the larger scheme 
to which these things are an allegory. Our 
present sense organs, inherited from a long 
animal ancestry, are framed for the material 
aspect of things/ Anything beyond that is 
a matter of inference, and by untrained or un- 
receptive persons may readily be disbelieved 
in. A whole nation may go astray in this 
direction, and, by over -emphasizing the 
material, may lose the spiritual sense alto- 
gether ; and may prostitute science to the sheer 
meaningless destruction of works of Art and 
of everything held sacred by humanity. 

The purely material aspect of the Universe 
has been preached, not indeed by the great 
philosophers, — far otherwise in their case, — but 
by the modern smaller men who have revolted 
from the German philosophy of the great time. 
How far the bastard materialistic philosophy 
of Haeckel has taken root in Germany I do not 



MATERIALISM 19 

know ; but I know that it has far too much 
power among the classes struggling for educa- 
tion in this country, — among whom are some 
who have been seeking to> indoctrinate them- 
selves and their fellows with the foolish para- 
doxes of " determinism," wherein people are 
supposed to be automata — guiltless of all blame 
whatever they do. Fortunately the conse- 
quences — the fruits — of a merely mechanical 
philosophy have now become conspicuous. 

The possibility of such a reversal of the 
process of evolution has been anticipated by 
Professor Bergson : — 

" What would happen," he asks, " if the 
moral effort of humanity should turn in its 
tracks at the moment of attaining its goal, 
and if some diabolical contrivance should cause 
it to produce the mechanization of spirit instead 
of the spiritualization of matter ? There was 
a people predestined to try the experiment." 

The material progress of such a people has 
altogether outstripped and overpowered, or 
negatived and reversed, their spiritual advance. 
" The idea, peculiar to the nineteenth century, 
of employing science in the satisfaction of our 
material wants, has given a wholly unforeseen 
extension to the mechanical arts, and has 
equipped man in less than fifty years with more 
tools than he had made during the thousands 
of years he had lived on the earth. Each new 
machine being for man a new organ — an arti- 
ficial organ which merely prolongs the natural 
organs — his body has become suddenly and 
prodigiously increased in size, without his soul 
being able at the same time to dilate to the 
dimensions of his new body." 

There has always been a sort of nightmare 
that some day mechanism would get the upper 



20 THE PAST 

hand and begin to enslave humanity. Well, 
we must take care that is does not. We must 
take warning by the German downfall, and 
must return, as our leaders have returned, to 
the theory and practice of a more idealistic 
philosophy. 



CHAPTER IV 

REVOLT AGAINST CHRISTIANITY 

UT not against idealistic philosophy only 
(has there been a revolt ; we have seen also 
a Teutonic revulsion against Christianity. 
Among the latest of European nations to receive 
it, they doubtless tried hard to assimilate it, 
and on the whole must be said to have failed : 
failed only temporarily no doubt, but seriously. 
It is felt to be a foreign religion, essentially 
alien to the German mind. For their doctrine of 
irresponsible force, and the supreme dominance 
of the State uncontrolled by any Higher Power, 
is practical Atheism. They use the term 
" God," but that term may mean anything ; it 
may be applied, and has been applied, to images 
and beings indistinguishable from devils. The 
use of the term depends on the attributes 
ascribed to the Being so named. There are 
Gods of cruelty and injustice in the Old 
Testament ; and under priestly influence not 
only was Agag hewed in pieces before the 
Lord, but helpless non-combatants were sacri- 
ficed, and even the beasts belonging to them 
maliciously slaughtered. 

We had hoped that the civilized part of the 
human race had got beyond this state of uncon- 
scious blasphemy ; but it is by fruits that we 

21 



22 THE PAST 

must judge the value of the belief of any nation 
and the nature of the God they worship. 

The savage attacks of Haeckel on Christianity 
have born fruit : — Louvain. We see there 
materialism rampant. The religion of Thor 
and Odin seems to be taking root in Germany 
again : very much as Heine predicted : — 

" When once that restraining talisman, the 
Cross, is broken, then the smouldering ferocity 
of those ancient warriors will again blaze up ; 
then will again be heard the deadly clang of that 
frantic Berserker wrath, of which the Norse 
poets say and sing so much. The talisman," 
he continued, " is rotten with decay, and the 
day will surely come when it will crumble and 
fall. Then the ancient stone-gods will arise 
from out the ashes of dismantled ruins, and rub 
the dust of a thousand years from their eyes ; 
and finally, Thor, with his colossal hammer, will 
leap up, and with it shatter into fragments the 
Gothic cathedrals." 

The prophecy is being fulfilled more literally 
than Heine anticipated. 

But let it not be supposed that Germany has 
thrown over all religious influence. Professor 
Cramb asks and answers eloquently the 
question : — 

" But what definitely is to be Germany's part 
in the future of human thought ? Germany 
answers : ' It is reserved for us to resume in 
thought that creative role in religion which the 
whole Teutonic race abandoned fourteen cen- 
turies ago.' Judaea and Galilee cast their dreary 
spell over Greece and Rome when Greece and 
Rome were already sinking into decrepitude and 
the creative power in them was exhausted ; 
. . . but Judaea and Galilee struck Germany in 
the splendour and heroism of her prime. Ger- 



REVOLT AGAINST CHRISTIANITY 28 

many and the whole Teutonic people in the fifth 
century made the great error. They conquered 
Rome, but, dazzled by Rome's authority, they 
adopted the religion and the culture of the van- 
quished. Germany's own deep religious instinct, 
her native genius for religion, manifested in her 
creative success, was arrested, stunted, thwarted. 
But, having once adopted the new faith, she 
strove to live that faith, and for more than thirty 
generations she has struggled and wrestled to 
see with eyes that were not her eyes, to worship 
a God that was not her God, to live with a 
world-vision that was not her vision, and to 
strive for a heaven that was not hers." 

That is supposed to be, and doubtless truly 
represents, Germany's ideal ; and it constitutes 
the best basis for her ambition not only to found 
a world-empire, but also to create a world- 
religion. " No cultured European nation since 
the French Revolution has made any experiment 
in creative religion. The experiment which 
England, with her dull imagination, has recoiled 
from, Germany will make ; the fated task which 
England has declined, she will essay." 

Unfortunately part of their endowment for the 
task is a thorough assimilation of the principles 
of Machiavelli, which were based on a clear 
recognition of the essentially weak and self-in- 
terested character of individuals and of all other 
States. Two of these principles may be thus 
specified : — first, that the end justifies the 
means ; second, that Christianity spells poli- 
tical and national ruin. So under Christianity 
the religious are at a disadvantage in all con- 
tests with the irreligious, and the world must fall 
into the hands of the unscrupulous. 

" Consequently we find Machiavelli telling us, 
with care and exactitude, when the prince should 



24 THE PAST 

break his word, when he should betray his ser- 
vant, when he should throw over an ally he is 
pledged to support, and so on ; and particular 
emphasis is laid upon the use of fraud to achieve 
his ends, for ' it behoves the ruler to be a fox 
as well as a lion.' . . . Machiavelli was the 
Treitschke and Bernhardi of the Renaissance." 

It is a point definitely at issue whether Chris- 
tianity is a religion which any given nation is 
able to absorb and practise. The Germans have 
made the effort and failed. We see the result. 
They regard it as an alien religion foisted on 
them from Galilee. They may even regard it 
as a Jewish religion, because it originated in 
Judsea ; though it is one that the Jews have 
never accepted. It is by no means the first 
time that Christianity has had to struggle for 
existence ; and we, the Allies, are now the 
champions of Christendom — an honour which 
we can hardly be said to have done enough to 
deserve. Nevertheless, for better for worse, 
that is our function at the Dresent time : and 
whether we are worthy of the position remains 
to be proved. 

It is to me largely a question of fact — a ques- 
tion of what is true. If this life be all, then a 
religion of Power might serve. Whether even 
then it would be the best, is a question, but it is a 
hypothetical question hardly worth considering. 
There is no need to consider different hypo- 
theses ; our business is to ascertain what is true. 

And if this life be not all — if we have a con- 
tinued existence, and if Christianity is really a 
Divine revelation, — then it is no use hedging — 
half believing and half not believing — and 
trying to act in between, so to speak. Strength 
lies in whole beliefs, after having taken the 
trouble to ascertain the truth. 



REVOLT AGAINST CHRISTIANITY 25 

Professor Cramb gives .an admirable and 
sympathetic account of the German ideal of 
the religion of Power — a kind of Gothic reli- 
gion — suited, as they think, to the Northern 
races ; as the Classical religion once seemed 
suited to the South. The pages of Cramb on 
Treitschke remind me of the pages of Gibbon 
on Julian and his conflict with Christianity. 
Then it was Rome versus Galilee ; and at the 
end the Emperor admitted that the Galilean 
had conquered. Now it is a sort of Napoleonic 
idea : it is Corsica versus Galilee ; and which 
shall conquer remains to be seen. 

Napoleon, a pioneer of this movement, also 
tried for world power or downfall ; and in 
St. Helena he gained downfall. Yet he had an 
ideal ; he did much good to France, and he 
meant to do more good to the world as soon as 
he had become supreme. 

I suppose that Prussia thinks the same. It 
really does believe in German culture, thought, 
and character, and wishes to impose them on the 
world. It thinks the way to do that is by main 
force. That is part of the religion of power ; 
it is a fighting religion, as Mohammedanism is. 
That is where it has its present advantage over 
Christianity, which is essentially a religion of 
peace and goodwill. It seems an unequal con- 
test ; and if the whole of the power were 
terrestrial, so it might prove. The well-pre- 
pared and fighting nation appears to have every 
advantage. Nearly every advantage it really 
has. We ought not to assume that we shall 
always win. The consequences of defeat are 
too terrible to contemplate, but they might 
have to be undergone. We should then have 
to submit to a tyranny such as we have hitherto 
only read of. We should have to pass under 



26 THE PAST 

the yoke. Civilians would have to stand and 
look on while horrors were perpetrated ; and 
afterwards our existence would only be by the 
permission of our masters. Slavery — which we 
have helped to exterminate from the world — 
would be enforced upon us. 

We have run a great risk ; the country has 
not taken it seriously enough. Mons was with- 
in an ace of being a disaster. The Germans 
overran France, and were close to Paris. 

What turned them back? I do not know. 
I doubt if any one fully and completely knows. 
September 3rd was a critical day. It is a war 
against Principalities and Powers and spiritual 
wickedness in high places. I myself believe 
in assistance from on High. 



[It may be necessary to explain that I am not referring to incidents 
imagined by writers of fiction.] 



CHAPTER V 

MORAL POWER OF NATIONS 

A REVOLT against Christianity I have 
called it. For surely one part of the 
essence of Christianity is that the weak 
should overcome the strong. That seems to be 
meaningless nonsense to the Prussian governing 
mind ; for according to one of their writers, 
the unpardonable sin — the sin against the Holy, 
Ghost — is weakness. Strength, dominance, 
power to impose your will on others — force of 
that kind is their conscious aim and object. 
That any weak nation should interfere, or delay 
the accomplishment of that object rouses their 
fierce indignation ; yet they will find their 
strength succumb to weakness, and the nation 
which they have overpowered and oppressed will 
be their ruin. They fear Russia ; they pretend 
to respect France, though they wish to smash 
her beyond recovery ; they hate and try to 
despise England ; but the nation before which 1 
their strength will ultimately go down in deep 
disaster is the one they have held in derision 
and over which they have ridden roughshod — 
Belgium. All honour to its King and his in- 
domitable spirit, which rose superior to any 
idea of non-resistance to violence and wrong. 
The world is the richer for the experience of 
the summer of 1 9 1 4, and Belgium has inscribed 

27 



28 THE PAST 

its name on an eternal roll of honour — the roll of 
those who have died in holding a pass against 
overwhelming odds. 

All Humanity blesses the heroic struggle for 
freedom of the Belgian nation, for without 
their aid the face of Europe would have been 
changed past redemption, and the Earth might 
have been subject to a brutal and intolerable 
dominance. We have witnessed in our own 
generation one of the classical contests of the 
world ; and the tale will go down to remote pos- 
terity — a tale of deep infamy and lofty honour — 
relating how at this time the powers of evil were 
frustrated, and how the holiest cause emerged, 
stricken but victorious — triumphing, as always, 
through grievous pain. 

"... notre force est en nous et nous avons souffert 

Meme notre douleur . . . devient notre orgueil." 

" Divine must be 
That triumph, when the very worst, the pain, 
And even the prospect of our brethren slain, 
Hath something in it which the heart enjoys : — 
In glory will they sleep and endless sanctity." 

Let it be clearly realized by posterity that the 
Prussian plans were well laid, and that from their 
point of view they ought to have succeeded. 
Had Belgium not resisted they would have swept 
over France before the French were ready, 
and before we could possibly have been there 
to help to stop them. After that the deluge ! 
Their plans were for a sudden violent irruption, 
for conquest of great tracts of territory and 
coast line, and afterwards reduction of the re- 
mainder at leisure. They trusted in wrong and 
robbery, and even in spite of the delay they very 
nearly succeeded. Their attack was a triumph 



MORAL POWER OF NATIONS 29 

of organization and evil foresight. Everything 
was prepared to the utmost ; the only weakness 
was that they relied on the help of the Devil, 
and after the traditional manner he failed his 
worshippers at the last moment. 

Neutrality of Belgium 

People may be surprised at the immense 
importance attached in European Diplomacy to 
the neutrality of Belgium. It has been in the 
foreground of many treaties, and has been re- 
affirmed and guaranteed again and again. In 
1870 the announcement that England would 
join against either side which infringed it, was 
effective ; both Prussia and France renewed 
their obligation to respect Belgian neutrality, the 
Franco-German War was fought on that basis, 
and if unwittingly troops crossed the Belgian 
frontier they loyally laid down their arms. 

It is only on such a basis that small nations 
can live comfortably as neighbours to Great 
Powers ; and it is instructive to realize how 
deep-seatedly the doctrine of neutrality is in- 
grained in the Belgians themselves. A Belgian 
writer in the Hibbert Journal, the Abbe Noel, 
writes thus : — 

1 On the morrow of 1830 the powers which 
had roused us to independent life maternally 
endowed us with ' perpetual neutrality.' To this 
neutrality, guaranteed by solemn signatures, we 
vowed to be faithful with a loyalty which was, 
no doubt, excessive. I well recall how from my 
earliest years I learnt to contemplate this 
neutrality as the first condition of our national 
existence ; it formed a dogma raised above 
the level of discussion, an obligation which 
formed part of our very existence." 



30 THE PAST 

How came it then, we English must ask, 
that our protestations in support of Belgian 
neutrality were on this last occasion discounted 
and ignored ? It was because it was too 
generally thought that we should not act up 
to our duty, that our aims were selfish, and 
that so long as we were not ourselves en- 
dangered we should hold aloof. 

There have been times when a mere state- 
ment by a British ruler, that unless certain 
wrongs are terminated we shall intervene, has 
produced an immediate effect. But that has 
been when the ruler was one who had shown 
that he fully meant what he said, and would move 
without hesitation, trusting in the Lord of Hosts. 
The message of Oliver Cromwell, sent in the 
words of Milton, was sufficient by itself to stop 
the persecution of the Waldenses. The Duke 
of Savoy instantly succumbed. Under Crom- 
well, England became the head and protectress 
of Protestant Europe — and that without striking 
a foreign blow. By sheer strength of character 
and force of right. 

Would to God that the word of Britain to-day 
were powerful like that ! Power so used is 
worth having. How came it that our sea-power 
to-day was ignored by a foe who underrated 
not our ships or our guns but our morale ? 
May it not have been because we were passive 
when, in the past, Bulgaria was overrun and 
tortured by our foes' present ally, the Turk? 
We had guaranteed the future of Armenia, and 
had replaced Macedonia under Turkish rule, 
but we lifted no hand to stop the slaughter of 
Armenians in the streets or among the moun- 
tains ; nor did we make effective effort to 
check Turkish misrule in Macedonia. One 
other instance, even more crucial, — we did not 



MORAL POWER OF NATIONS 31 

defend Denmark from the disgraceful raid 
which took from it Schleswig-Holstein. 

On the other hand we have been accused 
of coveting a Naboth's vineyard in South 
Africa, and of carrying on a diplomacy of 
bluff, till at length a calamitous war became 
inevitable. The rights and wrongs of all this 
are part of the commonplaces of party politics, 
and any one-sided presentation of the case is 
sure to be unfair ; but that is the way our 
case appeared to continental Powers, and that 
is why they neither feared nor respected us. 
For our sins, — or for our virtues if these were 
virtues, — we are smitten. We have now at 
length regained the respect of the world, though 
only at a mighty cost. Let us see to it hence- 
forward that we lose it not again. It is an 
asset worth having. 

In a pamphlet issued by the Society of 
Friends I find the following true statement : — 

■' Instructed opinion no longer holds that 
the true welfare of a people depends on the 
extent of territory under its government ; a 
clear distinction has become apparent between 
administering a country and possessing or 
utilizing its wealth. The great empires are 
filled with poverty-stricken people leading 
diminished lives. Certain small nations are 
models of human welfare to the rest of 
Europe." 

I should say this of the country called Tyrol ; 
there are none haughtily rich there, and none 
poor below the level of self-respect. It is a 
thousand pities that Austria has been dragged 
into this infamous war, for it seems to treat 
its provinces remarkably well, and with it 
England has till now had no quarrel. 

' The sword, as the sword, can give no 



32 THE PAST 

rights. . . . The spirit of conquest never can 
confer true glory and happiness upon a nation 
that has attained power sufficient to defend 
itself. . . . Indefinite progress undoubtedly 
there ought to be somewhere, but let that be 
in knowledge, in science, in civilization, in the 
increase of the numbers of the people and 
in the augmentation of their virtue and 
happiness. 



't> j 



by the Soul 
Only, the Nations shall be great and free." 




CHAPTER VI 

MODERN GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 

VEN Nietzsche in his saner moments saw- 
that militarism was a dangerous enemy to 
genuine German culture, and that it is liable 
to generate a bastard variety : — " Prussian 
victories/' he says, " are secured by severe 
military discipline, and other factors which have 
nothing to do with culture " ; and he gives 
warning that if these factors be permitted to 
grow and spread, " they will have the power 
to extirpate German mind ; and when that is 
done, who knows whether there will still be 
anything to be made out of the surviving 
German body? " 

Mommsen also sounded a note of warning 
many years ago : — 

" Have a care lest in this country, which has 
been at once a power in arms and a power 
in intelligence, the intelligence should vanish, 
and nothing but the pure military State should 
remain." : ■ \ 

And after the Franco -German War Nietzsche 
wrote : — 

;< A great victory is a great danger. The 
greatest error at the present is the belief that 
this fortunate war has been won by German. 
Culture. At present both the public and the 
private life of Germany shows every sign of the 

D 33 



34 THE PAST 

utmost want of culture " {Unseasonable Con- 
templations : 1873). 

And again, in Human, All Too Human, he 
Says : " The greatest disadvantage of the 
national army, now so much glorified, lies in 
the squandering of men of the highest civiliza- 
tion ; it is only by the favourableness of all 
circumstances that there are such men at all ; 
how carefully and anxiously should we deal with 
them, since long periods are required to bring 
about the chance conditions for the production 
of such delicately organized brains. But as 
the Greeks wallowed in the blood of Greeks, 
so do Europeans now in the blood of Euro- 
peans ; and, indeed, taken relatively, it is the 
most highly cultivated who are sacrificed, those 
who promise an abundant and excellent 

Eosterity ; for such stand in the front of the 
attle as commanders, and also expose them- 
selves to most danger, by reason of their 
higher ambition." 

He thus clearly recognizes that war is not 
a eugenic agent, but is destructive of much 
which it is to our interest to preserve. 

Unfortunately not all Nietzsche's writings are 
of this sane character — far from it : — some are 
little better thm inconsequential ravings : and 
his nation seems of late to have neglected the 
sanity and assimilated the mania. His genius 
lay in expressing ideas so forcibly as to arrest 
attention, and it would have been quite possible 
for a nation with a sense of humour to disinter 
the buried meaning, to recognize a vivid truth 
and an earnestness of purpose underlying his 
utterances, and to regard the form as a dramatic 
setting. The English nation has to some extent 
been able to discriminate in this way concern- 
ing its own more brilliant Nietzschian prophet, 



MODERN GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 35 

— who for instance tells us that if we value any 
truth we must be prepared to fight for it, that 
if we had a proper horror of poverty we should 
treat it as a crime and exterminate it. 

The idea that heroism and strenuous exertion 
are appropriate in other fields than those of 
bodily battle inspire the following passage, 
which contains the most famous of all 
Nietzsche's maxims :— 

" I rejoice in all signs that a more manly, 
more warlike age is beginning, which will, 
before all things, bring bravery once more into 
repute ! For it must prepare the way for a 
still loftier age, and store up the forces neces- 
sary to it, — that age which shall carry heroism 
into the domain of knowledge, arid wage wars 
on behalf of ideas and their consequences. . . . 
Believe me, the secret of extracting the greatest 
profit and enjoyment from existence is this : 
live dangerously/ Build your cities on 
Vesuvius ! Launch your ships on uncharted 
seas I Live at war with your equals and with 
yourselves ! Be robbers and conquerors, ye 
enlightened ones, so long as ye cannot be rulers 
and possessors " (The Joyful Wisdom). 

And again, more paradoxically : — 

1 Ye say a good cause will v allow even war ? 
I say unto you it is the good war that halloweth 
every cause " (Zarathustra : "Of War and 
Warriors "). 

Such sentences — fine as they are — obviously 
lend themselves to misinterpretation. It is not 
easy to understand that any large body of 
people could be so stupid, but the Prussians 
managed it ; and to realize their misreading 
of philosophic writers we have throughout to 
concentrate attention rather on the way that 
things are taken than on what was really meant. 



36 THE PAST 

They seem to have misinterpreted their 
prophet until he became really mad ; but 
still he carried them with him. To illustrate 
the violent things which they found possible 
to assimilate I regret to have to make abomin- 
able quotations, but it is necessary to exhibit 
and gibbet a few specimens. 

Speaking of the French Aristocracy before 
the French Revolution, and its overbearing 
attitude towards the peasants, Nietzsche justifies 
it thus : — 

" The essential point in a good and healthy 
aristocracy is that it shall not regard itself as a 
function of the commonwealth, but as its mean- 
ing and highest justification ; that it should 
therefore accept with a good conscience the 
sacrifice of any number of men and women, 
who for its sake must be depressed below the 
standard of humanity and reduced to slaves, to 
instruments. It must fundamentally believe that 
society ought not to exist for its own sake, but 
only as a foundation and scaffolding on the 
strength of which a selected race of beings may 
be able to devote themselves to their higher 
mission, and rise to a higher existence '* 
(Beyond Good and Evil). 

And again : — 

" At risk of wounding innocent ears, I lay 
down the principle that egoism is of the essence 
of the noble soul." So far he might be under- 
stood as referring to something like the divine 
egoism of the Gospel ; but he goes on to 
explain — " I mean the firm belief that to a 
being such as we are, other beings are by 
nature subject, and are bound to sacrifice them- 
selves." 

This is quite a Napoleonic tradition. It is 
well brought out by Bernard Shaw in his admir- 



MODERN GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 37 

able short play A Man of Destiny. In so far 
as a true aristocrat is the flower and glory of 
his race, there is much meaning in it, but its 
superficial meaning and immediate application 
are horrible. 

And all this anti-socialism can be easily 
twisted into an overbearing national insolence : 
witness the following effusion by Herr K. F. 
Wolff, in Pan-Germanlsche Blatter for Septem- 
ber 1914. 

" There are two kinds of races, master races 
and inferior races. Political rights belong to 
the master race alone, and can only be won by 
war. This is a scientific law, a law of biology. 
. . . It is unjust that a rapidly increasing 
master race should be struggling for room 
behind its own frontier, while a decadent 
inferior race can stretch its limbs at ease on 
the other side of that frontier. The inferior 
race should not be educated in the schools of 
the master race, nor should any school be 
established for it, nor should its language 
be employed in public. [If it rebel], it is 
necessary to use the most violent means to crush 
such insurrection, — and not to encumber the 
prisons afterward I Thus the conquerors can 
best work for the annihilation of the conquered, 
and break for ever with the prejudice which 
would claim for a beaten race any right to 
maintain its nationality or its native tongue." 

A writer in the North American Review 
points out that : — 

;< Here we see an easy but very significant 
transition has been effected. Nietzsche knew 
nothing of any master nation existing in the 
world to-day. His doctrine was that within all 
nations there was a master aristocracy, and a 
' herd ' living in more or less disguised slavery. 



38 THE PAST 

But Herr Wolff gaily transfers the ' Master ' 
quality from individuals to a whole nation — the 
Germans — and the slave quality to a whole 
nation, manifestly the French, who have no 
right to ' stretch their limbs at ease on the 
other side of the frontier.' This is, of course, 
a misreading of Nietzsche, but it is a misreading 
to which he lends himself only too readily, and 
there is every reason to believe that it is a mis- 
reading very widely accepted in Germany." 

But Nietzsche himself launched into the 
utmost violence of language before he had 
done, and in one of the wickedest of his books, 
Beyond Good and Evil, emphasizes his weird 
cult of selfishness thus : — 

' The noble type of man feels himself to 
be the determiner of values ; he looks for 
no approval from others, but takes his stand on 
the judgment — ' What is hurtful to me is hurtful 
in itself \ ; he knows it to be his prerogative 
to confer honour on things, to be a creator of 
values. . . . Ruling-class morality is, however, 
particularly strange and disagreeable to the pre- 
vailing taste of the day, by reason of the stern- 
ness of its principle that one has duties only to 
one's equals : that one may act towards beings 
of a lower order, and toward everything that 
is foreign, just as seems good to one . . . 
and in any case ' beyond good and evil.' " . . . 

" We hold that hardness, violence, slavery, 
danger — and in the heart, secrecy, stoicism, 
arts of temptation, and devilry of all kinds, — 
that everything evil, terrible, tyrannical, wild- 
beast-like and serpent-like in man, contributes 
to the elevation of the species ' man,' just as 
much as its opposite — and in saying this we do 
not even say enough. . . . To refrain from 
mutual injury, from violence,, from exploitation, 



MODERN GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 39 

to reduce one's will to a level with that of 
others . . . discloses itself as what it is — 
namely, a Will to the denial of life, a principle 
of dissolution and decay. One must resist all 
sentimental weakness : life in its essence is 
appropriation, injury, the overpowering of what- 
ever is foreign to us and weaker than ourselves, 
suppression, hardness, the forcing upon others 
of our own forms, the incorporation of others, 
or, at the very least and mildest, their exploita- 
tion." 

And in another book, called The Genealogy 
of Morals, we find that infamous passage about 
the ' blond beast " so often referred to in 
connection with the ravaging of Belgium, which 
has been used to justify the instructions given 
to the licensed Prussian soldiery when at length 
they flung off the last traces of superficial civili- 
zation : — 

" Those very men who are so strictly kept 
within bounds by good manners, respect, usage, 
gratitude, and still more by mutual watchfulness, 
by jealousy inter pares, who, moreover, in their 
behaviour to one another show themselves so. 
inventive in consideration, self-control, delicacy, 
loyalty, pride and friendship — those very men 
are to the outside world, to things foreign and 
to foreign countries, little better than so many 
uncaged beasts of prey. Here they enjoy 
liberty from all social restraint, . . . they revert 
to the beast of prey's innocence of conscience, 
and become rejoicing monsters, who perhaps go 
on their way, after a hideous sequence of 
murder, conflagration, violation, torture, with 
as much gaiety and equanimity as if they had 
merely taken part in some student gambols. 
. . . Deep in the nature of all these noble 
races there lurks unmistakably the beast pf 



40 THE PAST 

prey, the blond beast, lustfully roving in search 
of booty and victory. From time to time the 
beast demands an outlet, an escape, a return to 
the wilderness." 

The reason such conduct is resented is cyni- 
cally expounded thus : — 

" That the lambs should bear a grudge 
against the great birds of prey is in no way 
surprising ; but that is no reason why we 
should blame the great birds of prey for picking 
up the little lambs. And if the lambs say 
among themselves, These birds of prey are evil ; 
and whoso is as unlike as possible to a bird of 
prey, and as like as possible to its opposite, a 
lamb, shall we not call him good ? One can 
have no objection to their setting up such an 
Meal, except that the birds of prey are likely 
to regard it rather mockingly, and to say, ' We 
bear no grudge against these good lambs ; on 
the contrary, we love them — for nothing is more 
to our taste than a tender lamb.' " 

So we sometimes find the Germans now 
saying that while they hate England they love 
France and Belgium. Were it not that the 
fruits of this philosophy, planted in too rank a 
soil, had actually turned out so unexpectedly 
hideous, it might be laughed at as extravagant, 
and likened to the intention of a mother to 
make her son a butcher because of his fondness 
for animals. 

But enough of this preposterous madness ! 
The main fault lay with the nation who drew 
sustenance from these ravings, and accepted 
them because of their correspondence with its 
own immoral desires. 

In a series of Essays under the title of " The 
Comments of Bagshot " which were published in 
the Westminster Gazette during the years 1908 



MODERN GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 41 

and 1909, their writer realized very clearly how 
it was that the Germans were wresting- philo- 
sophical teaching to their own ultimate destruc- 
tion : it was because they found their literal 
form expressive of the doctrines which their 
own selfish bigotry demanded. 

11 Why all this pother about Nietzsche? This 
mad mystic, trying to make a philosophy out 
of the principles of the German General Staff, 
is only our own Carlyle carried to the ultimate 
logic of his Teutonic ideas, and if you will go 
to him yourself and read his books, instead of 
taking them secondhand in the bowdlerized ver- 
sions of his imitators, it will do you no more 
harm than a visit to the Zoological Gardens, 
where the Nietzschean principle is in full work- 
ing order." 

And in another place he goes on : — 

" The worst of Nietzsche is that none of the 
people who ought to read him will, and that 
for those who do read him he is virulent poison. 
Rightly construed, this surging anarchism of 
his is a revolt against the doctrine which the 
supermen have imposed upon the world, and a 
call to the lowly and meek to assert their man- 
hood against their oppressors ; and it is a 
singular perversion which makes it the gospel 
and the justification of the oppressor. But 
that is the nemesis of all teaching which seeks 
to cast out fire with fire. To the oppressed 
Nietzsche says, ' Go and be oppressors too ' — 
which they never will be and never could be 
even if they wanted to be. It is utterly useless 
to invite the pigeon to become a hawk or to 
tell St. Francis to turn himself into Napoleon." 

It is too late now, alas ! to argue as to what 
relic of sense may underlie the Nietzschean 
ravings. Taken as his countrymen have taken 



42 THE PAST 

them, and applied as their Professors have 
applied them — translating into intellectual terms 
and seeking to develop latent appetites and 
vices in the nation — they are manifestly- 
devilish : and this fact it is which dooms them, 
to extinction. 

So we happily revert to our own statesman- 
poet, Wordsworth : — 

" Everything which is desperately immoral, 
being in its constitution monstrous, is of 
itself perishable : decay it cannot escape ; 
and further it is liable to sudden dissolution. 
For he stands upon a hideous precipice (and it 
will be the same with all who may succeed to 
him and his iron sceptre) who has outlawed 
himself from society by proclaiming, with word 
and act, that he acknowledges no mastery but 
power." 

If Germany were doomed to win this war, she might continue 
— for how long, we cannot tell — to be the victim of a perverse ideal. 
But any Englishman who reveres and loves that soul of her which 
speaks in her music, philosophy, and poetrj^, must desire her total 
defeat for her own sake as well as for his country's and the world's. 
It is incredible that that soul is dead, and that anguish would not 
wake it from its evil dream. — A. C. Bradley. 



CHAPTER VII 

A CONFLICT OF IDEALS 

WE, unworthy, are agents of Higher 
Powers in this conflict. We are 
genuinely and consciously fighting for 
the right. We have no other object than to 
keep humanity from falling below the state 
it has so far attained, and sinking back into the 
mire of merely animal materialism and brute 
force. We stand against the powers of evil, 
one of the champions of Christendom, resisting 
decadence and upholding spiritual faith. That 
is our strength and may yet be our salvation. 
There is no false pride in this statement, and 
there need be no false modesty. The day of 
trial has shown us both our faults and our 
virtues. Lamentably deficient in wisdom as 
we are, we do as a nation earnestly long for the 
triumph of the good. Heroism, virtue, and 
strength of character, really do appeal to us, 
and arouse not perfunctory but genuine enthu- 
siasm. Moreover, in some directions we are 
able to act up to our convictions : we 
strenuously desire to act fairly, and to give our 
foes and competitors an even chance ; and on 
the whole we achieve this. It is not always 
so in the stress of competitive commerce ; but 
as a national characteristic it is so : when we 
win, we wish to win by fair means not by foul. 
We have a sense of personal honour, and we 

43 



44 THE PAST 

have a healthy horror of gratuitous cruelty and 
savage revenge. We honour an upstanding 
foe, and we heartily desire to succour a defeated 
enemy. 

In all this we have often been misunderstood. 
It has sometimes been suggested that we must 
be acting from some ulterior base or cowardly 
motive, and often we have been accused of 
hypocrisy. But the _ charge is a false one. 
Hypocrisy is not a charge easy to controvert, 
yet as a matter of fact it is not one of our 
national vices. Instinctively shrinking from it, 
indeed, we often fall into the other extreme 
and refrain from putting forward our best 
motive. We do not resent the charge of a 
little more worldly wisdom than we really 
possess ; we rather like to be thought subtle, 
and resent being called simply good. Yet the 
latter charge is nearer to our national charac- 
teristics than the former, in spite of the fact 
that our conduct so often falls below our 
aspiration. Virtue victorious and vice van- 
quished is what really appeals to the heart of 
the people — even amid communities where, by 
the warpings of society or the weakness of 
the flesh, bad habits would seem to be theoretic- 
ally as well as practically supreme. 

Is all this true of our race alone and are these 
simple and childlike characteristics denied to 
other nations? God forbid. They are, let us 
hope and fully believe, characteristic of un- 
warped humanity. But unfortunately a part 
of humanity has, for the time, become warped 
by evil teachings ; and the more docile and 
obedient it is the more disastrous is the result. 

A writer in the quarterly journal called 
Science Progress truly says that : — 

" We have witnessed the greatest crime ever 



A CONFLICT OF IDEALS 45 

perpetrated upon humanity. It is due in the 
first place to the wickedness or incompetence 
of those by whom the mass of men allow them- 
selves to be ruled — the prince who pretends to 
possess the mandate of God, or the politicians 
who pretend to possess the mandate of the 
people ; and secondly to the fact that, however 
far civilization has progressed, the mass of 
men still remain intellectually in but little better 
condition than they were in when they smote 
each other with sticks and hammered each other 
to death with stones." 

It is a curious coincidence that at this anni- 
versary of the battle of Waterloo Europe should 
once again be contending with a Napoleonic 
idea of world dominion : this time in a more 
flagrant and even less pardonable form. The 
influence of the Napoleonic spirit is by no 
means extinct, for as Professor Cramb wrote — 
and he did not live to see the present war, 
though he felt it was coming : — 

'•' The influence which Napoleon exercises 
upon modern German thought is peculiar and 
instructive. In Europe as a whole, in the 
twentieth century, two great spirit-forces con- 
tend for men's allegiance — Napoleon and 
Christ. The one, the representative of life- 
renunciation, places the reconciliation of life's 
discords and the solution of its problems in 
a tranquil but nebulous region beyond the 
grave ; the other, the asserter of earth and of 
earth's glories, disregardful of any life beyond 
the grave, finds life's supreme end in heroism 
and the doing of great things, and seeks no 
immortality except the immortality of renown ; 
and even of that he is slightly contemptuous. 
To Napoleon the end of life is power, and the 
imposing of his will upon the wills of other 



46 THE PAST 

men. Like Achilles or like Ajax, ever to be the 
first and to outshine all other is his confessed 
ambition. ^ 

Two Ideals 

Reduced to its elements this war is a war of 
ideals, a conflict between two ideals of govern- 
ment ; — the English ideal of a commonwealth 
of nations, a group, of friendly states, some 
larger some smaller, some stronger some 
weaker, but all working together and con- 
tributing each her quota for the good of 
humanity and the progress of the world ; — that 
is the ideal on the one hand ; — and on the 
other, the Prussian ideal of a single glorified 
state, dominating all others, enforcing its will 
despotically, imposing its customs its learning 
and its culture on all the rest of the world. 
This ideal is that of a strong resolute autocracy, 
ruling all Europe, not with the consent of the 
governed, but in spite of their remonstrance 
and ignoring their dislike ; a government so 
strong as to be able to 'crush all opposition, 
and to do away with all freedom except the 
freedom to do precisely as you are told ; the 
replacement in fact of freedom by coercion. 

The fact is that, as Mr. Austen Chamberlain 
said in one of his speeches, 

" This is a struggle between two ideals of 
civilization and progress — whether the world 
is to be drilled and dragooned on the Prussian 
model, or whether the measured order and free- 
dom which has prevailed wherever the British 
flag flies is to triumph." 

Their ideal, — drill, discipline, and docility, 
the three desiderata of government, — they must 
believe in very strongly, or they would not 
sacrifice so much to enforce it. 



A CONFLICT OF IDEALS 47 

^So long as they managed their own affairs 
in this way no one had a word to say, ; but 
when missionary enterprise is attempted, our 
approval or disapproval becomes important. 

Mr. Harold Picton, writing with the object 
of promoting friendly feelings between the 
countries and stemming the torrent of hate 
which he feared might be reciprocated from 
our side, admits this freely, in spite of his 
partial admiration and whole-hearted good feel- 
ing for the German people, their efficiency, and 
their virtues. He says : — 

" In the past these matters have belonged 
to the internal affairs of Germany, and we have 
paid them but little heed. Now, however, that 
Germany proposes to extend her system to 
peoples comparatively free, her general methods 
of internal administration are a matter of grave 
concern for us all. Those methods as applied 
to others are shortly, ' Be German or be 
damned.' There are those who would rather be 
damned. This the German statesmen of to-day 
did not foresee. I have no contempt for 
German individuality and character, — on the 
contrary, it attracts me ; but when an indi- 
vidual begins to consider it his sacred duty to 
impose his individuality on others, he is on the 
high-road to a very disagreeable form of in- 
sanity. Only strong measures will effect a 
radical cure." 

He admits also the meanness of the policy. 
of half upholding an agreement and half with- 
drawing from it : — 

" What is low is to get the benefit of an 
agreement and also the benefit of breaking it. 
iWhat was the method of the German statesmen ? 
Up to the 31st of July the German Ambassador 
r gave Belgium to understand that her neutrality 



48 - THE PAST 

would be respected. On the 2nd of August 
the German Government demanded the imme- 
diate passage of German troops. Such a 
standard of honour would make enduring peace 
for ever impossible, for an enduring peace must 
depend upon agreements : it would make a 
brotherhood of nations for ever impossible, lor 
any brotherhood must depend upon trust." 

But he realizes, as we all ought to realize 
clearly, the temptations and difficulties under 
which Germany labours by reason of its hedged - 
round geographical position. Whether it ought 
to feel suffocated or not, it does, in spite of our 
free trade and open door : and whether it has 
ever really felt alarmed about possible attack 
on one or other side — for it must know that its 
past history has not made it beloved — we need 
not be surprised at an occasional causeless' 
panic, and at the shouldering of arms betimes 
against imaginary dangers:-— 

" Let us, as Englishmen, imagine our land 
where Germany now is. Imagine the shifting 
suspicions of diplomacy on our land frontiers 
— the huge undefined power of Russia on one 
hand, an unfriendly France on the other. Com- 
pulsory armament would be inevitable, and the 
cult of force might sink into our souls." 

This cult of force has planted Prussia astride 
of the neck of Germany : it has risen, and 
now it must perish, with the sword. 

The years 1866 and 1870 were the fatal 
years of Prussian supremacy and success. Up 
to that time German art, German science, 
German history, were admired and envied 
throughout -the world. It had gloried in the 
era of GoetrW, of Beethoven, and of Helmholtz. 
Since that date the great men of Germany have 
been few ; the decline then begun has con- 



A CONFLICT OF IDEALS 49 

tinued. With some exceptions, no doubt, they 
have lost their public faith in unselfish 
action ; they officially disbelieve in chivalry ; 
they deny any moral government of the world ; 
they believe in the rule of the strongest. It 
is a thousand pities, for in physical science 
they have done wonders. Who does not 
remember the splendid achievements of Hertz 
— that brilliant follower of our own Clerk 
Maxwell — whose all too early death saved him 
from the horrors of this disastrous epoch. 
E. Goldschmidt has devised an ingenious ex- 
tension on the practical side of Hertz's work. 
In mathematical physics Planck is a name to 
conjure with ; and Einstein is another eminent 
man : though lately he has elaborated a 
doctrine, a Principle of Relativity, which throws 
overboard much of the advance made by the 
genius of his own and other countries, and 
which if accepted — as for a time it threatened 
to be, — would sterilize effort and bar further 
progress by a gratuitous negation. 

In Biology it is true Sir Ray Lankester speaks 
of the present German position with dispraise 
bordering on contempt. But in Mechanism and 
Chemicals and Apparatus the nation still ranks 
high ; its scientific instruments and their design 
are beautiful ; it has devoted itself to the 
design and construction of appliances, specially 
those which can be used in war. Hitherto 
in peace time we have reaped the benefit of its 
instrument makers' well -instructed skill. Now 
we seem to be fighting a nation of machines. 
In war -material it is unrivalled ; in personnel 
it is lacking ; its army is itself a machine — a 
devoted, terrible, obedient machine. 

To it we of the Allied Nations oppose Men, 
individual resource and character, the domina- 



50 THE PAST 

tion of personality — handicapped I fear by 
the rigidity of officials and by insufficient 
preparation. 

Determination there is on both sides ; for 
not in biological metaphor, but in dire reality, 
it is a struggle for existence. The two ideals 
are in the field against each other ; one must 
emerge triumphant, the other must be defeated. 
There can be no halting- between two opinions . 
It is a very ancient alternative ; " If the Lord 
be God, follow Him ; but if Baal, then follow 
him.' 1 There can be no peace till the prophets 
of Baal are exterminated, and the falseness of 
their creed displayed. Up and down, back- 
wards and forwards, the fighting line may 
surge ; but there can be only one end. Of 
this we should be well assured, while striving 
with all our might for its accomplishment. 
Towards this some are giving their lives, or 
the lives of those dear to them ; others are 
giving of their substance : and this without 
stint, for if the cause of God is not triumphant, 
life on this planet will be no longer worth 
living. Death is preferable to German rule 
of the kind we should experience if conquered, 
and if the dormant national hate, fostered by 
lies and now fanned into a blaze, were set free 
on the vanquished. What has been done in 
Belgium would be done in England, and more 
also. The Belgian homes are an object lesson, 
clearly displaying the character and conse- 
quences of the Prussian ideal. 

Yet I must assume that the people them- 
selves are not consciously evil, only diabolically 
misguided. For they too have an ideal, I grant 
them that : — one which has become deeply, 
engrained, and has spread from Prussia to the 
rest of Germany, deceived as it has been, with 



A CONFLICT OF IDEALS 51 

the truth sedulously kept from it. There will 
be an awakening ; and already there must be 
many thousands who have not bowed the knee 
to Baal ; who long for freedom as we do ; 
and who in due time will make their voices 
heard. Amid the glamour of apparent success 
they cannot speak ; but when disasters come, 
when they can no longer be concealed, and 
the nation learns how it has been befooled ; 
when it realizes how it has befooled itself ; 
then the wholesome elements in the nation will 
emerge, and will strike down the dominant 
party with execration and anathemas. 

For this conclusion we can bide our time. 
Internal forces will work the necessary dis- 
ruption, so long as we make no feeble, no 
hasty, no inconclusive peace. It is no time 
to talk of peace yet ; nor will it be for long. 
Humanity cannot afford to forgo the gain to 
be derived from a struggle such as this ; nor 
can it run the risk of having such an awful 
conflict ever repeated. Now is the accepted 
time, now is the day of salvation. 

And fortunately the nations are united as 
never they have been before. So that a 
preparation is being made for friendly union 
among the nations of Europe, and ultimately 
for that federation of the world to which 
prophets have been long looking forward. 
Many horrors, much aerial fighting, will 
precede that time. Tennyson foresaw it all. 
You remember how he 

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly 

dew 
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; 

Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd 
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. 



52 THE PAST 

Yes, the federation of kindred and friendly- 
nations, each with its own independent powers 
and aptitudes, its separate life and genius. So 
will our ideal of free institutions and self- 
respecting communities be fulfilled ; — that 
settled policy of free government which has 
resulted in the loyal colonies and devoted 
daughter nations of the British Empire. 

The result of the struggle will be ultimately 
wholesome for all the nations concerned, in- 
cluding Germany ; for what will be defeated 
will not be Germany, but a miserably wrong- 
headed philosophy of life. The Germany to 
which we owe so much science and learning 
and art will be re-born ; it will throw off the 
shackles of a cramping and overpowering 
despotism of evil : and once more, I sincerely 
trust, we shall be friends. 

As a sign of grace, let us bear in mind the 
fine testimony borne by the foe to that great 
and gallant soldier who had done his best, in 
face of obloquy, to prepare his own nation for 
the war which he felt was imminent. An 
obituary notice in a German paper contained 
the following : " Lord Roberts was an honour- 
able, conspicuous, dangerous enemy, and an 
extraordinarily brave one ; before such a man 
we lower our swords." 




CHAPTER VIII 

TWO FALLACIES 

HE errors or mistaken theories which 
are now supreme in Germany are : — first, 
a glorification of war, based on a mis- 
reading of Darwinism ; and, second, an en- 
thronement of mere power, a belief in the 
unmoral supremacy of the State. They must 
be genuinely believed — even if to some extent 
believed to order — but they are desperate mis- 
takes. 

Fallacy No. i 

Consider them for a moment. First, a mis- 
reading of Darwinism ; a misunderstanding of 
the phrase " struggle for existence " as con- 
ducive to evolution, so that slaughter and active 
conflict seem the highest good. The Dar- 
winian struggle is not of this order at all. It 
is a selection of the fittest to survive, among 
a crowd of organisms which cannot possibly 
all survive ; a selection of those most fitted to 
the environment. It is akin to the natural 
competition and effort with which we are all 
acquainted in peace time ; it is not like war 
at all. 

The expressions " struggle for existence n 
and " survival of the fittest," containing, as 
they do, a suggestion of conscious effort and of 
ethical significance, have been to some extent 

53 



54 THE PAST 

responsible for a certain amount of popular 
misconception. When we remember that the 
Darwinistic conception applies to the evolution 
of plants as well as of animals, we realize how 
absurd it is to think of it as akin to conscious 
fighting, or as anything more than a reaction 
against crowdedness, a mutual effort against 
severe conditions of life, or at most a struggle 
for food and light and air. 

Mutual effort I say, for there is much un- 
conscious co-operation about the struggle, far 
more co-operation than is usually admitted. 
Not to speak of the obvious case of the social 
animals, who manifestly contribute to each 
other's welfare, nor of what there is still less 
need to mention, the sheer nobility of mother- 
hood — which goes without saying as an example 
of loving help — we can adduce the interlocking 
of animals and plants in the economy of nature, 
and the inter-relation among animals so that by 
the sacrifice of some species others manage 
to live, as all illustrating a harmonious and 
co-operating though unconsciously conducted 
scheme — as unconscious and instinctive as the 
service bees render to plants, and plants to 
bees. Thus it is that they all live together 
and prosper fairly, with numbers kept down to 
a reasonable level. The mutual dependence 
on each other is a s!ign of unconscious co-opera- 
tion and mutual aid, rather than of hostility 
and warfare. The system is a simulation in 
the unconscious world of love as well as of 
hate, and of self-devotion as well as of strife. 

But, apart from this, the facts on which the 
Darwinian theory is based are merely these : — 

(i) Organisms reproduce themselves and 
tend to increase in number. 



TWO FALLACIES 55 

(2) The rate of reproduction is so great 
that it is impossible for all to survive. 

(3) Those survive, or tend to survive, 
whose special features are best adapted to 
their environment. 

(4) The special features or peculiarities 
of individuals tend to be transmitted to 
their descendants. 

(5) Hence the race gradually becomes 
better adapted to its surroundings, and 
accommodates itself to the prevailing con- 
ditions. 

(6) The environment therefore, in con- 
junction with the unalterable facts of here- 
dity, may be said to govern selection. 

It is round clauses (4) and (5) that most dis- 
cussion and controversy arise : and it is not 
likely that these simple statements solve the 
whole problem of organic evolution, — far from 
it. But so far as they go they are undeniable, 
and the important thing for us is the influence 
of environment, because that is really the only 
part over which we have any control. 

A writer in the Eugenics Review , Mr. T. G. 
Chambers, says : — 

" What has to be realized to-day — and this 
seems to me to be the great lesson to be learned 
from' a study of the principles of evolution — is 
that man has a very considerable power to 
determine what is to survive. If this be true 
a colossal responsibility rests upon man. He 
may by his actions cause to survive that which 
he knows to be good or that which he knows 
to be evil. By his influence upon environment 
he possesses a considerable control. He may 
create survival values. The beneficial effect 
of his influence in this direction will depend 



56 THE PAST 

entirely upon his ethical principles. Just as 
man might, if he chose, breed hideous grue- 
some beasts by selection, and thus produce 
horrors, so he can by his influence over the 
environment of his own race give survival value 
to base and evil characteristics, and thus cause 
the deterioration of the race. He is working 
within the laws of evolution. He may, on 
the other hand, so influence environment as to 
tend to give survival value to the highest and 
noblest characteristics, and thus, working within 
the same laws, he is raising the ethical standard 
of the race." 

So far as humanity alone is concerned the 
really helpful struggle for life is not that of 
the battlefield, but of the City, the workshop, 
and the home ; the struggle for political and 
religious freedom, for reasonable leisure, for 
more domestic comfort ; and above all the 
never ending striving towards a higher standard 
cf conduct and greater nobility of soul. 

Fallacy No. 2 

The second error is the absolute enthrone- 
ment of material power ; the blasphemous 
notion that nothing higher than the State exists, 
and that there is no moral law, human or divine, 
to which the strongest State is subject ; nothing 
above its own conception of what is beneficial 
to itself. Expediency thus becomes the supreme 
guide ; all other considerations are signs of 
weakness and timidity ; the sole national virtue 
is power to execute what it intends ; the one 
fatal sin is deficiency of power. If any given 
State is supremely strong, there exists no power 
above it ; it is free to execute its own behests, 
and to dominate and coerce the world. 



TWO FALLACIES 57 

This pernicious doctrine, the genesis of which 
we dealt with in Chapter VI, is what must 
be overthrown ; and so great is the importance 
of the final demonstration of its falsity that a 
heavy price is being paid for it, in suffering 
and death. In no other way could the con- 
viction of error be so thoroughly burnt into 
the conscience of humanity. 

And the conditions for the proof are sound. 
No one will be able to say that the German 
nation was weak, that it was caught unpre- 
pared, that it had not every advantage which 
the appliances and discoveries of the nineteenth 
century could grant it. In all adventitious and 
material ways it had immensely the advantage. 
It chose its own time, and it struck with vigour, 
determination, and enthusiasm. Only on the 
spiritual, the immaterial side, was it deficient ; 
and so the conscience of humanity has risen up 
against it, and it will be defeated. 

The whole strength of every enlightened 
nation, and of every individual in the nation, 
must combine to resist it. And if England 
is in the van, as it is in the forefront of the 
battle ; if it draw upon itself, as it is doing, 
the hatred and fierce antagonism of the powers 
of evil ; so much the more joyful and hopeful 
for the England of the future. "It will come out 
of the struggle braced and invigorated, and 
renewed in the spirit of its mind. 

We needed this effort, and this sacrifice of 
ease and prosperity ; but the sinews of the 
nation are still sound. She has seen dark days 
before ; indeed, as Emerson says, she has " a 
kind of instinct that she sees a little better in a 
cloudy day." 

And those who are young have the joy of 
taking part in the struggle, and will reap the 



58 THE PAST 

fruits of the great national experience hence- 
forth throughout their lives. Let them see to 
it that they make use of their opportunities and 
have nothing to regret when the trial is over, 
when victory supervenes and peace reigns once 
more. Other less obvious opportunities there 
will always be, when these exceptional ones 
are gone : that is true : but lost opportunities 
never return. 



CHAPTER IX 

GERMANY AND ENGLAND: 
GERMAN ATTITUDE 

Fas est et ab hoste doceri 

IT is not waste of time to study the character 
of an alien civilization if it is sufficiently like 
our own to enable us to learn something from 
it — even if we gather from it only caution and 
warning. From Germany we have much to 
learn, both in the positive and the negative 
direction. In the past we have been trying 
to assimilate the good. In the present we. must 
also take warning by the bad. 

The British idea that every citizen is entitled 
to express his opinion on politics has no doubt 
its ludicrous side, but it is also a safeguard. 
Instinct may be wiser than knowledge in some 
cases, and it is to be presumed that the average 
man is governed by a sort of instinct, since he 
certainly cannot have much knowledge. Un- 
doubtedly, however, he ought to have more, 
and that is one reason why W.E.A. and other 
Labour movements in the direction of self- 
education are so important. 

It is also the chief reason why the Country 
should be kept better informed. Self-sacrificing 
action cannot be expected merely on a basis 
of gossip and uncertainty. The information, 

59 



60 THE PAST 

both about facts and about policy, which 
privately spreads among politicians and is thus 
presumably accessible occasionally to highly 
placed enemies, should be more widely and defi- 
nitely disseminated ; as it is in France, where the 
Government — more clearly and logically recog- 
nizing the fact of democracy — takes the people 
into its confidence. -Common rumour is fal- 
lacious and slanderous at times, and too little 
gratitude is felt for those who are bearing a 
serious National burden. But, on the whole, one 
instinct that I hope our race is acquiring is 
not to believe in lies, however insistently they 
are told us, but to read between the lines and 
judge of the facts for ourselves. This instinct 
seems not to exist in Germany, where the people 
swallow lies like children who have never 
run the gauntlet of a Public School ; where it 
is said that in the first term new boys believe 
everything that is told them, in the second term 
disbelieve everything, and in the third term 
begin to discriminate between truth and false- 
hood. The Germans seem to be in their 
first term ; and until they have learnt wis- 
dom by bitter experience they are a danger 
and menace to the world. Their great Army is 
like a first-class revolver in the hands of a 
clever but mischievous child. 

Their old child-like strength and simplicity 
are now spoiled — let us hope not irretrievably 
spoiled. At present " the Germans, having 
made up their minds to be a nation of the world, 
are overdoing it with a German thoroughness. 
They have tried," says Mr. Clutton -Brock in his 
Thoughts on the War, " they have tried to 
learn wisdom like industrious scholars, but, 
being a people naturally simple, they have 
chosen the worst possible teachers. They went 



GEKMANY AND ENGLAND 61 

to the Prussians and said to them, Make us a 
nation of the world ; and the Prussians, for 
their own purposes, did their best, or their 
worst, with them. 

" Prussia has gained her power over Germany 
because she is more utterly worldly than any 
other nation. We and the French have been 
worldly enough, but we have always known 
that there was another world. Prussia has 
never known that ; — or, rather, the other world 
for her, if it exists at all, is just the same as 
this one, except that it is more favourable to 
Prussia. And the Germans, diffident, wavering, 
and credulous in matters of the world, have been 
overawed by her narrow certainty. They saw 
that the Prussians, far more stupid than them- 
selves, had gained power ; and they went to 
Prussia to learn the secret of it. So she taught 
them that all the German virtues, moral and 
intellectual, had been wasted hitherto because 
they had not been used in the service of 
Germany. German thought, German virtue, 
German culture must now be all as proudly and 
consciously German as the German Army, and, 
like that, must be organized for victory. The 
Prussians taught this because they did not 
understand the German virtues ; and the 
Germans learned it because they were still 
children and Prussia seemed to them to be 
grown up." 

Many Englishmen who have been accustomed 
to remember with pride their German training, 
and who still regard the people of that country 
with affectionate concern, have had to speak in 
sad accents lately. Professor Sully, writing in 
the Hibbert Journal, recently described his ex- 
periences as a student in Gottingen in and about 
the year 1867 — i.e. before the Franco -Prussian 



62 THE PAST 

/ 

War — and mentions some of the characteristics 
which then struck him, thus : — 

" One feature common to both sexes which 
struck me particularly was an unwillingness to 
trespass upon what is a main field of conversa- 
tion for English people, namely, politics. We 
soon learned that this reticence was not wholly 
due to the strong feeling aroused by the recent 
annexation of Hanover to Prussia. The German 
habit of leaving the officials to settle what is 
best for the country seemed to us to be only 
one illustration of the general belief in the 
expert, in everybody's having his special domain 
of knowledge — his Fach, outside of which he 
should be chary of offering his opinion. With 
this respect for the expert there seemed to 
associate itself a dull uniformity of opinion 
about men, books, and other things, and an 
apparent timidity in expressing views of a 
marked individuality. Even in those days one 
could see the tendency of the Germans to allow 
their minds to be 'over-drilled.' " 

And Professor W. J. Ashley also, who re- 
ceived not long ago an Honorary Degree from 
Berlin, says, on a basis of experience sub- 
sequent to 1870 : — 

" In academic circles the legitimate pride 
in German science seemed sometimes to have 
become almost an obsession, and to have the 
effect of shutting out of sight what was being 
done in other lands. It seemed to be hardly 
realized that what Germany had to teach the 
western world in the way of thoroughness and 1 
method had already been pretty well learnt, 
and that there were intellectual qualities of 
almost equal value, qualities of lucidity and 
discrimination and balance^ which could perhaps 
be better learnt elsewhere — even in the despised 



GEKMANY AND ENGLAND 63 

^rance. There was a curious national self- 
\ isf action which failed to perceive that the 
great new ideas, the waves of intellectual 
inspiration within and without the realm of 
scholarship and research, which were affecting 
the minds of this generation all over the world, 
were now almost all of them coming from other 
directions than Germany. Again, it is enough 
to turn to France, and mention such names as 
Pasteur and Rodin and Loisy and Bergson. 

" The word for it all, 1 am afraid I must 
say, is simply ' conceit.' But then [he goes onj 
I have reflected that there have been times when 
we ourselves were similarly difficult to get on 
with. I suppose nobody, at this time of day, 
would say that Palmerston was positively ingra- 
tiating in his dealings with other countriesj; 
and if we want to see how confined was the 
outlook of the middle-Victorian Englishman we 
have but to go back to . . . Thackeray's un- 
conscious exemplifications. And as I believed 
that England had become a little more tolerant, 
a little less self -pleased, a little less heavy- 
handed than in Palmerston's time, so I hoped 
that the German phase of self-glorification and 
disregard for the feelings of others would also 
pass away, without a great cataclysm. I was 
mistaken ; but I am! not ashamed of having 
ascribed to Germany a reserve of statesmanship 
and cool sense which it is now apparent it did 
not possess.' 1 

Many of us could say the same about ouij 
friendly admiration for what we thought was 
Germany. The revelation has been appalling. 

The Editor of the Hibbert Journal, in April 
191 5, thus summarizes both Germany's strength 1 
and weakness : — 

" Germany is, and has long been, the great 



64 THE PAST 

head-centre of the critical movement in all its 
departments. She has turned her critical 
faculty on the problems of society and has 
developed an industrial and military organiza- 
tion which for theoretical completeness is 
without a rival. She has created a social 
machine which can be set working by the 
pressure of a button ; but, through her constant 
oversight of the human element, she has left 
the button at the mercy of the most dangerous 
element in the State. 

" While there is no nation which thinks so 
much as the German, there are many which 
enjoy more freedom of thought. Her thought 
is standardized, and the expert controls its direc- 
tion throughout an immense variety of products. 
Once the most creative of nations, she has now 
become the least. Her originality is mainly 
of one kind : she makes new departures in 
criticism and invents, or borrows, new machines 
— social, industrial, military, philosophical, and 
religious. Nowhere else is psychology so much 
studied, and human nature so little understood." 

Thus the misunderstandings between England 
and Germany are not superficial but deep seated. 
They do not merely involve questions of com- 
mercial interests, but they are rooted in a 
conflict of principles and ideals. Dr. Sarolea 
in 1 9 1 2 predicted that if a war between the 
two countries did break out, it would not be 
merely an economic war, like the colonial wars 
between France and England in the eighteenth 
century ; rather would it partake of the nature 
of a political and religious crusade, like the 
French wars of the Revolution and the Empire. 
The strain between England and Germany, he 
implies, is part of the old conflict between 
Liberalism and despotism, between industrialism 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND 65 

and militarism, between progress and reaction, 
between the masses and the classes. One nation 
believes in political liberty and national 
autonomy, its Press is free and the rulers are 
responsible to public opinion ; whereas in the 
other nation public opinion is still muzzled or 
powerless, and the masses are still under the 
heel of an absolute government, a reactionary 
party, a military Junkertum, and a despotic 
bureaucracy. The root of the evil in Germany 
lies in the fact that in Germany the war spirit 
and the war caste still prevail, and that a 
military Power like Prussia is the predominant 
partner in the German Confederation. 

The fact is that the old policy of Frederick 
the Great survives in Prussia to this day. It is 
true that he still governs Prussia. Of Frederick, 
Bernhardi says : — 

" The aggrandizement of his territory had 
become a necessity, if Prussia wanted to exist 
on a business footing and bear its royal name 
with honour. The king saw this political neces- 
sity, and took the bold decision to challenge 
Austria. None of the wars which he waged 
were forced upon him. None did he postpone 
to the last extremity. Always he reserved it 
to himself to initiate the attack, to forestall his 
adversaries, and to secure the most favourable 
chances." 

Compare with this attitude what Bernhardi 
advised in 191 1 about policy to-day, and about 
the best method of concealing the nature of 
what would really be a war of aggression : — 

" If we did attack either France or Russia, 
the other would be compelled to come to the 
rescue, and we should find ourselves in a much 
worse position than if we had only to combat 
one adversary. It must therefore be the duty 



66 THE PAST 

of our diplomacy so to shuffle the cards as to 
compel France to attack us. We might then 
expect that Russia would remain neutral. 

" One thing is certain, we shall not get 
France to attack us by mere passive waiting. 
Neither France nor Russia nor England need 
attack us to obtain what they want. As long, 
as we are afraid to be the aggressors, they 
can gain all they need from us by diplomatic 
means, as has been proved by the recent Moroc- 
can events. Hence, if we wish to bring about 
an attack on the part of our enemies we must 
initiate a political action which, without 
attacking France, yet will hurt her interests 
and those of England so severely that both 
States will feel obliged to attack us. The 
possibilities for such a procedure present them- 
selves in Africa as well as in Europe." 

Commenting in 191 2 upon this free-spoken 
utterance, Dr. Sarolea says : — 

" The General has spoken with the frankness 
of a soldier, and not with the reticence of a 
diplomat. The British people will be grateful 
to the gallant soldier for his candour, however 
cynical. They will remember some of his 
admissions and some of his indiscretions, and 
[warned by these] they will perhaps be less 
inclined henceforward to political optimism — 
less inclined to assume that the present differ- 
ences between Germany and England are to be 
removed by international courtesies, by Parlia- 
mentary visits and banquets, or that difficulties 
will be solved by a policy of passive 
acquiescence and blissful repose." 

Alas 1 we of the general English public knew 
too little of what was being hatched behind 
the scenes, and did not trust the clear-sighted 
vision of our prophets. 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND 67 

For a time ingenious and organized deceit 
appears to answer, in a world accustomed to fair 
dealing ; but now at length the atrocious false- 
hoods and lying diplomacy by which Prussian 
representatives seek to deceive neutral nations 
have overreached themselves. Their deeds 
have drowned their words, and the reaction 
of neutral nations, especially of America, can 
be expressed in those words of Emerson : 
" What you are speaks so loudly, we cannot 
hear what you say." 

Still we may be puzzled as to why they take 
all this trouble, and why they detest us so 
much. For one thing, they are hideously 
annoyed with our successful colonization, and 
think that they could do the same with the 
same opportunities. If they could, then pre- 
sumably they would already have done so ; 
but as Governors of Colonies they have been 
complete failures, and not a population desires 
to be under their thumb. So they think 
they can mend matters by wholesale robbery 
and by taking colonies, as going concerns, from 
other people. 

Dr. Sarolea, with his usual acumen, hits off 
the position exactly : — 

" The final responsibility must be traced to 
the political and moral shortcomings of the 
German people themselves. After all, success- 
ful colonization, as distinguished from the old 
predatory Imperialism, is the fruit of political 
freedom, of individual initiative, of a spirit of 
adventure arid enterprise ; arid until recently 
the German people were lacking in every one 
of those qualities. 

:■ Germany is not really a nation of colonists 
in the exact sense of the word, for a colonist 
is a man who settles in a new land, and a man 



68 THE PAST 

who settles in a new land must be a pioneer 
and an adventurer. Now the German does not 
like to settle in a new land ; he is so accus- 
tomed to passive obedience that he does not 
succeed in those new countries where initiative 
is the first quality required. He generally 
prefers to go to old settled countries, like the 
United States, or Brazil, (or Australia), which 
have already an organized government." 

Baron von Hiigel .sums up the weakness 
of Germans, regarded as colonizers, very 
clearly : — 

"It is precisely where the Prussianized 
German attains to supreme power, that his 
defects show and tell. ' Live and let live,' — 
patience, tolerance, geniality, comradeship, 
trust, generosity ; the willingness, the desire, 
to see races, social organizations, religions, 
subtly different from our own, developing, each 
at its best, in an atmosphere of large toler- 
ance ; with the benefit of the doubt (where 
the State appears endangered by such toler- 
ance) always given in favour of the liberty and 
responsibility of these various individuals and 
complexes, — all this is fundamentally necessary 
for successful colonial rule, and this is not 
necessarily associated with manufacturing and 
mercantile (and military) gifts. 

"It is , no accident that England, a great 
colonial Power, is not a great military Power, 
and that it holds India with, comparatively, 
a handful of European troops. You are hardly 
likely to possess both gifts and tastes to a 
high degree ; and you will, in any case, find 
that an intense militarism profoundly hinders, 
and does not help, a wholesome colonial rule. 
Recent Germany, unfortunately for us all, thinks 
that not only are these things, at their intensest, 



GERMANY AND ENGLAND 69 

thoroughly compatible, but that the one neces- 
sarily furnishes the might, and hence the right, 
to the other." 

Thus the mere fact that we succeed, by ap- 
parently casual methods, where they fail by 
highly elaborated officialism, is a cause of much 
irritation, and has helped to engender an orga- 
nized feeling of hate. Baron von Hugel goes 
on to say, — 

" The bitterness felt by so many home 
Germans against the English successes amongst 
foreign and native races, is doubtless greatly 
intensified by the English appearing to the 
German to succeed as it were in play, — as 
cricketers and golfers, as ' good fellows ' who,, 
with a school and university education of little 
concentration, and with, say, some six hours of 
office work, comparatively simple administrative 
machinery, and small bodies of military, succeed 
where he fails. These Britishers are mostly 
not theoretical at all, they possess loosely knit 
minds and moderate passions. The German 
works intensely, systematically, preparing every- 
thing ; and yet his complex bureaucracy, his 
militarist self -repression, his huge plans, lead 
to little or nothing. Thus the ' flannelled fool ' 
utterly out-distances the iron will and fierce 
labour of highly trained specialists. Hogarth's 
Idle Apprentice, unjustly yet quite understand- 
ably, envied the solid successes of the Indus -. 
trious Apprentice. But would not the 
Industrious Apprentice grow wildly bitter if the 
Apprentice who seemed to him Idle, at least as 
compared with himself, somehow carried off one 
great solid success after the other from under 
his very eyes? " 

Yes, it must be aggravating ; and it would 
be a great mistake for us to pride ourselves 



70 THE PAST 

on our foolishness, as if it were that and not 
some less obtrusive real merit — especially the 
spirit of recognized and permitted freedom — 
which has given us success as pioneers. Once 
beyond the pioneering stage the Germans 
have much to teach us ; and if only they 
had fought fairly and honourably we could 
have sympathized with them, and should have 
felt genuinely like friends who possess different 
aptitudes and power s-^each admiring the other. 
They make excellent colonists under the free- 
dom of British institutions. Settlers in Australia, 
for instance, by no means hanker for a return 
to Prussian officialdom. German interests were 
in no danger, they had a perfectly open door 
for their commerce, and the meritorious part 
of their civilization was spreading : if only 
they had not been too hasty and too greedy and 
too determined on territorial expansion at the 
expense of thriving neighbours. 



CHAPTER X 

ENGLAND AND GERMANY: 
ENGLISH ATTITUDE 

WHATEVER German intentions may be 
or may have been with respect to terri- 
torial expansion, it is quite certain 
that no considerations of that kind explain our 
entry into the war. Fortunately for us the 
British Interest note has never been sounded 
in the present case — beyond the vital need for 
defence — and we are working whole-heartedly 
and disinterestedly with our Allies. It is most 
true, as Edward Lyttelton has said, that " from 
the outset of this grim business Britons have 
been nerved to do and die because they have 
set themselves to vindicate principles which are 
to us and to all men, though some see it not, 
of infinitely greater value than any power or 
prestige or Empire." 

The deeply-engrained and unanimous horror 
of the English-speaking race at the main inter- 
national crime which was initially committed 
by our foes is thus expressed by our good friend 
of American birth, Henry James : — 

" Personally," he says, " I feel so strongly 
on everything that the war has brought into 
question for the Anglo-Saxon peoples, that 
humorous detachment or any other thinness or 
tepidity of mind on the subject affects me as 

71 



72 THE PAST 

vulgar impiety, not to say as rank blasphemy ; 
our whole race -tension became for me a 
sublimely conscious thing from the moment 
Germany flung at us all her explanation of her 
pounce upon Belgium for massacre and ravage 
in the form of the most insolent ' Because I 
choose to, damn you all ! ' recorded in history." 

So it is that the noblest of our youth have 
enrolled themselves for the necessary work of 
war, whether at home or abroad ; and many, 
alas, of the flower of humanity on both sides 
have succumbed. The death of Mr. Glad- 
stone's grandson, successor to the Hawarden 
estate, inheritor of a great name, and himself 
of brilliant political promise, has struck 
England with singular poignancy ; and the 
words which the Grand Old Man used, in 1870, 
about the cause to which this country has now 
pledged its honour and the lives of its soldiers, 
may well be recalled : — 

"We felt called upon to enlist ourselves on 
the part of the British nation as advocates 
and as champions of the integrity and inde- 
pendence of Belgium. And if we had gone to 
war we should have gone to war for free- 
dom, we should have gone to war for public 
right, we should have gone to war to save 
human happiness from being invaded by 
tyrannous and lawless power. That is what 
I call a good cause, gentlemen. And though 
I detest war, — and there are no epithets too 
strong, if you could supply me with them, that 
I will not endeavour to heap upon its head, — in 
such a war as that, while the breath in my 
body is continued to me., I am ready to engage. 
I am ready to support it, I am ready to give 
all the help and aid I can to those who carry 
this country into it." 



ENGLAND AND GERMANY 73 

Forty-five years later the readiness of his 
and of many another noble family has been 
tested, and has rung true. 

So we have stood up for the integrity of 
the smaller nations against a European bully : 
knowing that we should suffer much strain and 
loss, but throwing ourselves into the struggle 
in accordance with our pledged word, without 
counting the cost. 

Happy are all free nations, too strong to be dispossessed, 
But blessed are they among nations, that dare to be strong for 
the rest. 

But that is not how our attitude appears 
to our foes, nor ever has appeared. Professor 
Cramb, explaining German views of England 
long before ever the present war began, speaks 
of the hostility to England then prevalent, and 
says that in the great historian Professor von 
Treitschke, — whose lectures in Berlin were 
crowded with the elite of that capital, — 
antagonism reaches a height and persistence 
of rancour or contempt which in so great a 
man is arresting if not unique. For him the 
greatness of England passed with the seven- 
teenth century, with Cromwell and Milton. 

That which Treitschke hated in England is 
what Napoleon hated, — something that seemed 
to them a pretentiousness, an overweening 
middle -class self-satisfaction, an insular narrow 
conceit ; in fact, the emotion enshrined in that 
historically interesting but rather unfortunate 
national hymn, " Rule Britannia " : — 

The nations not so blest as thee 
Must in their turn to tyrants fall, 
Whilst thou shalt flourish, great and free, 
The dread and envy of them all. 



74 THE PAST 

" Consider/' says Cramb, " the world-pic- 
ture which that upcalls ! A single island usurp- 
ing the glory of freedom, surrounded by a 
world groaning beneath tyrants, whilst she sits 
in lonely grandeur ! \ 

" For Treitschke it is not genius, it is not 
valour, it is not even great policy, as in the 
case of Venice, which has built up the British 
Empire ; but the hazard of her geographical 
situation, the supineriess of other nations, the 
measureless duplicity of her ministers, and the 
natural and innate hypocrisy of the nation as a 
whole. These have let this monstrous empire 
grow — a colossus with feet of clay. Along 
with this he has the conviction that such a 
power can be overthrown. And with what stern 
joy and self- congratulation would not the 
nations acclaim the destruction of the island- 
State, ' Old England,' — old, indeed, and 
corrupt, rotten through and through ! " 

That is what the Germans thought of us, and 
that is why they desired to inherit our Empire 
and give it the ineffable blessings of their own 
unspeakable civilization and Kultur ! 

" For, observe," says Professor Cramb again, 
" this world- dominion of which Germany 
dreams is not simply a material dominion. Ger- 
many is not blind to the lessons inculcated by 
the Napoleonic tyranny. Force alone, violence 
or brute strength, by its mere silent presence 
or by its loud manifestation in war, may be 
necessary to establish this dominion ; but its 
ends are spiritual. The triumph of the Empire 
will be the triumph of German culture, of the 
German world-vision in all phases and depart- 
ments of human life and energy, — in religion, 
poetry, science, art, politics, and social en- 
deavour. ' ' 



ENGLAND AND GERMANY 75 

■■ The characteristics of this German world- 
vision, the benefits which its predominance 
is likely to confer upon mankind, are, a German 
would allege, truth instead of falsehood in the 
deepest and gravest preoccupations of the 
human mind ; German sincerity instead of 
British hypocrisy ; Faust instead of Tartuffe." 

This is their aim — what seems to them their 
high and lofty aim, — and so if the Germans 
conquered us we should have to submit to an 
efficient tyranny such as we have had no 
experience of. Those misguided working men 
who think — or at any rate allow themselves 
to say — that they would just as soon be 
governed from Berlin as from anywhere else, 
know little of what the Germans have in store 
for them. They may pray that they never 
know ! The Germans are quite frank about it, 
— they are frank, and they are strong. It is 
easy to be frank about brutality ; it is not easy 
to be explicit about philanthropy, or public 
spirit, or any other virtue ; because one never 
knows how soon the weakness of the flesh will 
prevent the demands of the higher will from 
being executed. Hence all such protestations, 
if made, would savour of hypocrisy. 

People who fail to understand us may 
regard us as hypocritical. We are weak, and 
fall below our ideals, but we are not hypocrites. 
Hypocrisy is not indeed very common ; it is 
not an English vice at all. The conduct of 
some Englishmen has thrown scorn upon the 
lofty attitude of others ; and it is a matter of 
too common and painful experience that at 
different times, even in the same individual, 
religious emotion is not inconsistent with 
debased acts. Humanity is a complex thing, 
and not only the same nation but the same indi- 



76 THE PAST 

vidual may say one thing and do another ; 
thereby of course bringing some discredit on 
his religious convictions, and enabling his 
practice to be thrown up against his preaching. 
But in spite of weaknesses of that kind, King 
David was not a hypocrite. 

The Prussian theory deprecates the subjuga- 
tion of one's own will to any higher and nobler 
purpose ; it cannot understand the kind of 
Divine service that . is perfect freedom ; it 
would repudiate Tennyson's aspiration after the 
highest kind of self-will : — 

Our wills are ours, we know not how ; 
Our wills are ours, to make them thine. 

Is an attitude like that weakness ? Is that 
hypocrisy? A thousand times, No ! 

Grounds of Dislike 

But though it is true that we have not been 
liked, even our good attributes having been 
misconceived and mistrusted, the Germans 
have been disliked still more. This fact, 
steeped as they are in self-admiration, seems 
to come to them as a surprise. They try to 
court the approval of neutral nations, to depre- 
cate any rebuke for their conduct ; and they 
regard hostility, or even lukewarmness of ap- 
probation, as undeserved and hurting to their 
feelings. They go about saying, in the sense if 
not the words of Gilbert and Sullivan's Opera, — 

And everybody says I'm such a disagreeable man, 
And I can't think why ! 

Well, considering their history, the wide- 
spread dislike is not really surprising. Dr. 
Sarolea estimated the reason clearly enough : — 



ENGLAND AND GERMANY 77 

' Wherever German power has made itself 
felt for the last forty years — in Italy and 
Austria, in Russia and Turkey — it has coun- 
tenanced reaction and tyranny. In politics 
Germany is to-day what Austria and Russia 
were in the days of the Holy Alliance, the 
power of darkness. Whilst in the provinces 
of science and art the German people are 
generally progressive, in politics the German 
Government is consistently retrogressive. It 
cannot be sufficiently emphasized and repeated 
that, more than any other State — more even 
than Russia — Prussia stands in the way of 
political advance. It was Prussia that helped 
to crush the Polish struggle for freedom in 
1863 ; when, a few years ago, English public 
opinion was protesting against the Armenian 
massacres, the Kaiser stood loyally by Abdul 
Hamid and propped his tottering throne ; when 
the Russian Liberals were engaged in a life- 
and- death struggle with Czar do m, the Kaiser 
gave his moral support to Russian despotism. 
It is not too much to say that it is the evil 
influence of Prusso- Germany alone which keeps 
despotism alive in the modern world." 

And, again, — 

" Prussia owes whatever she is, and whatever 
territory she has, to a systematic policy of 
cunning and deceit, of violence and conquest. 
No doubt she has achieved an admirable work 
of organization at home, and has fulfilled what 
was perhaps a necessary historic mission, but 
in her international relations she has been 
mainly a predatory Power. She has stolen her 
Eastern provinces from Poland ; she is largely 
responsible for the murder of a great civilized 
nation. She has wrested Silesia from /Austria. 
She has taken Hanover from its legitimate 



78 THE PAST 

rulers. She has taken Schleswig-Holstein from 
Denmark, Alsace-Lorraine from France. And 
to-day [this was written in 191 2] the military 
caste in Prussia trust and hope that a final 
conflict with England will consummate what 
previous wars have so successfully accomplished 
in the past. 

V The German of to-day still wants to rise 
and to soar ; no longer in order to sow broad- 
cast the seeds of ideas from the high altitudes 
of speculation, but rather to throw down bombs 
and explosives." Yes, " a season of calm 
weather " our prophets, Plotinus and Tennyson 
and Wordsworth, have taught us to associate 
with spiritual vision and angels' visits : 
Materialism bids us, at these periods, look out 
for Zeppelins. And the dove, which by mys- 
tical writers and artists had been used as a sym- 
bol for the Holy Ghost, has become a Taube ! 

But let us always distinguish between Prussia 
and the rest of Germany. True, the rest of 
Germany has subordinated itself to Prussia, 
which has the ultimate political, financial and 
military control, but their doing so has been a 
fearful mistake and one which will yet cost 
them dear. 

An American point of view was indicated by 
an editorial in the New York Times : — 

" The world cannot, will not, let Germany 
win in this war. With her domination over all 
Europe, peace and security would vanish from 
the earth. ... A few months ago, the world 
only dimly comprehended Germany, now it 
knows her thoroughly : Germany is doomed 
to sure defeat. Yet the doom of the German 
Empire may become the deliverance of the 
German people if they will betimes but seize 
and hold their own.' 4 



ENGLAND AND GEEMANY 79 

" The German people are slandering them- 
selves when they lay themselves prostrate before 
the sword and the peaked helmet of the Hohen- 
zollern monarchy. They are not predestined 
for all time to come to be the utterly incapable 
politicians which they profess to be. They, 
are not an essentially ' unpolitical ; race doomed 
to anarchy, and the Prussians are not the 
imperial race predestined to supremacy. 
Indeed, in political capacity the Southern 
Germans are far more gifted than the Prussians. 
Their traditions of municipal government are 
as superior to the bureaucratic traditions of 
Prussia as the genius of liberty is superior to 
the genius of despotism. No country can boast 
of a more glorious civic history than the free 
German cities of the South and of the East." — 
So says Dr. Sarolea. 

The following characteristic extract from 
Carlyle serves to describe the typical official 
Prussian : — 

" Examine the man who lives in misery 
because he does not shine above other men ; 
who goes about producing himself, pruriently 
anxious about his gifts and claims ; struggling 
to force everybody, as it were, begging every- 
body for God's sake, to acknowledge him a 
great man, and set him over the heads of men 1 
Such a creature is among the wretchedest sights 
seen under the sun. A great man ? A poor, 
prurient, empty man ; fitter for the ward of a 
hospital than for a throne among men. I 
advise you to keep out of his way. He cannot 
walk on quiet paths ; unless you will look at 
him, wonder at him, write paragraphs about 
| him, he cannot live. It is the emptiness of the 
man, not his greatness." 

Do not let us abuse an individual, but only 



80 THE PAST 

a type. An individual may, be a figure-head, 
and so attract to himself both glory and dis- 
honour ; but a human personality is a strange 
mixture, it contains elements of good and bad, — 
and human judgement, based necessarily on im- 
perfect knowledge, is very fallible — but we may 
sympathetically admit that a strong personality 
set up on a pinnacle is in a difficult and 
dangerous position, from which if he fall he 
falls like Lucifer never to rise again. 

Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail 
Against her beauty ? May she mix 
With men and prosper ! Who shall fix 

Her pillars ? Let her work prevail. 

But on her forehead sits a fire : 

She sets her forward countenance 

And leaps into the future chance, 
Submitting all things to desire. 

Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain — 

She cannot fight the fear .of death. 

What is she, cut from love and faith, 
But some wild Pallas rom the brain 

Of Demons ? fiery hot to burst 
All barriers in her onward race 
For power. Let her know her place ; 

She is the second, not the first. 

A higher hand must make her mild, 
If all be not in vain ; and guide 
Her footsteps, moving side by side 

With wisdom, like the younger child : 

For she is earthly of the mind, 
But Wisdom heavenly of the soul. 

Tennyson, In Memoriam, cxiv. 



PART II 

THE PRESENT 

"The accepted time" 



Therefore take heed how you impawn our person, 
How you awake our sleeping sword of war : 
We charge you, in the name of God, take heed ; 
For never two such kingdoms did contend 
Without much fall of blood ; whose guiltless drops 
Are every one a woe, a sore complaint, 
'Gainst him whose wrongs give edge unto the swords 
That make such waste in brief mortality. 

Shakespeare, Henry V. 



CHAPTER XI 

" S.O.S." 

WHAT IS THE WAR FOR? 

HUMANITY has much to contend with ; it 
is set in the midst of tremendous forces 
— surrounded by many, and great dangers 
— and is itself full of infirmity ; contemplation 
of their evil case has before now driven men 
to pessimism or to despair. All our mutual 
help and tolerance are needed for the conduct 
of life. We have learned to be sensitive to the 
grief and pain of others, to shrink from sights 
of bodily suffering and to do our best at any, 
cost to relieve it. When earthquakes or ship- 
wrecks or railway accidents occur, we stand 
horrified, and sometimes mistrust Providence. 
To bring such catastrophes about on purpose 
is unthinkable. 

'How then can the present state of Europe 
be credible, or other than a ghastly nightmare? 
All the resources of civilization and science 
utilized, and all the manhood of the nations 
busily engaged, either in preparing machinery 
for inflicting torture and death, or else in 
employing them for this hellish purpose I 

Nor is the suffering limited to the wounded 
alone. The links of affection which bind one 
human being to another afford further oppor- 
tunity for exquisite torture. The premature 

83 



84 THE PEESENT 

breakage of such links, and the agonized fear of 
friends for those exposed to the danger, give 
scope and room enough for a cry to the heavens, 
of magnitude such as cannot have ascended in 
any previous epoch of the world's history. 

Collect the utterances of pain and grief and 
heroism throughout antiquity : they would have 
to be multiplied manyfold before they reach in 
volume the agonized supplications rising from 
the far more numerous and tenderly nurtured 
humanity of to-day. Bereavement is wide- 
spread. The voice of weeping is heard through 
all the lands : soon in" every family there must 
be one dead. 

It is a terrible time for women, for all 
mothers and wives on whom the blow has 
fallen or soon may fall. The pain may take 
the form of a dazed bewilderment — and no 
wonder — for there never yet was a more 
meaningless, a more diabolical, stroke. Here 
is an expression of it which in simple form 
may represent the feeling of thousands : — 

WIDOWED IN SPRING. 1 

The lattice of the naked boughs is turning into lace 
As little buds, like cunning knots, a growing pattern trace. 
Across a sky of April blue the swallows wheel and chase, 
But Nature's beauty sickens me when I only want his face again — 

His honest, ugly face. 

I draw no comfort from the warmth of springtime in the land, 
For there is winter in my heart and round my head a band 
Of burning frost that numbs my brain. ... I do not understand 
Why Death should take my man from me ere I could clasp his 
hand again — 

His strong, protecting hand. 



1 I. M. P. in the Westminster Gazette for the evening before the 
1st of May, 1915. So Victor Hugo in exile : 

Le moi de mai, sans la France, 
II n'est plus le mois de mai. 



"S.O.S." 85 

Yes, the shot crashes into human souls as well 
as into human bodies ;. the guns reach far. 
As Harold Begbie says, — 

"A battlefield is only the outline of War. 
Fill it up with agonizing anxiety, with burn- 
ing prayers, with maddening sleeplessness, with 
tears and sobs and groans ; fill it up with the 
heart's capacity for utmost grief and sharpest 
pain ; fill it up with suffering, the suffering 
of women and children, till the outline is as 
pitted with these things as a map of London 
is pitted with names, and then you may have 
some idea, some faint idea, of the range of a 
heavy gun and the flight of a bullet." 

Surely there must be some deep cause and 
reason for all this suffering. It has not been 
sent by Providence ; it has been brought about 
by man. The execution of the design is wholly 
carved out by humanity, ; it is self -torment, 
a kind of self-flagellation, that we are witness- 
ing, a determination 'of mankind to inflict the 
utmost evil on itself. Surely there must be 
some good reason ? 

Or is it mania, a homicidal mania that has 
afflicted some portion of the human race, so 
that it runs amok amid its fellows and 
endeavours to exterminate them before they can 
defend themselves? 

No sane man or set of men could imagine 
that they had attained to so great an elevation, 
so high and mighty a culture, that all the rest of 
mankind must either immediately rise to that 
status, or must recognize its superiority so 
vividly as instantly to succumb and grovel 
before it. Crazy megalomania is not unknown 
in asylums, and it has to be kept under restraint. 
The forms it takes are sometimes humorous, 
and onlookers have laughed at the antics of 



86 THE PRESENT 

those whose sense of proportion, of decency, and 
of humour, have become totally obliterated. But 
when the monomania attacks a community of 
high organization and intelligence, with all the 
resources of civilization in its hands, designed 
and discovered by every country under heaven 
and constructed with the best brains and energy 
of the race, — then the spectacle becomes not 
humorous but tragic. 

Surely, even so, a glimmer of sense remains : 
they cannot anticipate conquest without a 
struggle, they must realize that not on prostrate 
inferiors alone will suffering be inflicted but 
on themselves also, that their own nation will 
suffer untold pain and grief whatever be the 
ultimate result. Will they not ask themselves, 
is the result — can any possible outcome — be 
worth the awful sacrifice which must be made 
in order to attain it ? Either they never asked 
the question in this way, or they were so 
obsessed by their own superiority as to answer 
in the affirmative ! None but madmen could 
give such an answer. No others could set 
themselves against the whole human race, with 
the desire to exterminate it rather than fail to 
impose upon it their own ideas of progress 
and civilization and culture. 

" We look around upon the larger life of the 
social world and the political state — that mind- 
made structure into which the knowledge, the 
energy, the instructed will, of unnumbered 
generations of men have built themselves, the 
greatest by far of all the achievements of the 
human spirit : what do we see ? It is welter- 
ing chaos thinly crusted over, and hardly held 
down ; its elements ever embattling themselves 
for war. It is Civilization itself, the hard -won 
product of man's greatest pains, whose security 



"S.O.S." 87 

seems to many to be at stake, striking its 
moving tent and facing a wilderness which no 
foot has ever trodden, and no man knowing 
what awaits it." 

Will it emerge at last ? Or are its forces 
once more to be rolled backwards ? 

It is certainly interesting that ancient methods 
of warfare have been to some extent resusci- 
tated, and that battles are again being fought 
on or near the plains of Troy, but it is hardly 
encouraging from the point of view of human 
progress. The inevitable question has been 
put — 

' Shall the epitaph on our human kind be 
nothing better than a forlorn ' As it was in the 
beginning, is now, and ever shall be ' ? What 
advantageth it any man that war is fought in the 
old way, in the ancient places, if war and the 
rumours of war shall never cease from our 
hearts? " 

And the writer who asks this question, in a 
paper called The Arbitrator for May 191 5, con- 
tinues : — 

" There are times when hope grows faint, and 
human affairs seem to the tired eye and the 
aching brain a mere whirling revolution round 
one fixed desperate centre. Bound to the wheel, 
man turns full cycle in the course of the ages. 
' You know as well as we do,' said the Athenians 
of old to the people of Melos, ' that, as the 
world goes, the question of right is only dis- 
cussed between equals : while, among those who 
differ in power, the strong do what they can, the 
weak suffer what they must. 

" Our forefathers had high and generous 
aspirations one hundred years ago, when a 
quarter of a century's fighting had sobbed itself 
to sleep, and a Holy Alliance seemed to promise 



88 THE PRESENT 

halcyon days to Europe. Their aspirations were 
not fulfilled. Within a few tens of years the 
winds of war were awake again, and rushed 
from their caverns, in sweeping gusts and heavy 
gales, to traverse a continent from end to end. 
Their fretting clamour arose, as it arises now, to 
the starry silence of the skies, and the white 
radiance of eternity was stained, as it is stained 
to-day, by the drifting smoke of the guns.'* 

Nor only of the guns. To their eternal shame 
they broke their plighted word here also, and 
are employing as instruments of torture the 
liquefied gases discovered by our own Faraday 
in Albemarle Street, during a century of what 
seemed like progress. 

Yet in one sense there is progress. We may 
be thankful that with us " there is a difference, 
after all, between the tone and temper of this 
war and the tone and temper of the last war 
that England waged. Here, at least, there has 
not been recurrence. Into that war we rushed 
as if it were a joyous venture ; into this we 
have gone as if it were — what, indeed, it is — 
a bitterly cruel necessity. We have not flaunted 
our flags or made merry over our enemies. We 
have possessed our souls in quietness. . . . 
If we can but capture these hours, and 
make them ours for ever — if we can but make 
the present temper of the nation our eternal 
possession — it may be that there remains a 
rest, after all, if not for us, at any rate for our 
children." 



CHAPTER XII 

MATERIAL EFFICIENCY AND 
SELF-INTEREST 

THE essence of Christianity is persuasion, 
and what Matthew Arnold called sweet 
reasonableness,; while Teutonic Kultur, 
on the other hand, deifies force and material 
efficiency. Short of this worship of mere expe- 
diency, however, and apart altogether from their 
regarding nothing human or divine as above 
the exigencies and expediency of the State, 
the German people have set an example to 
Europe in the systematic way they have culti- 
vated the practical arts and the applied sciences. 
They have not made a good use of the increased 
powers so conferred upon them, but they have 
made a very efficient use ; and in that they 
have done wisely. They have shown that in 
their generation the children of this world are 
wiser than the children of light. For this they 
deserve praise, and have received it. Material 
efficiency is a good thing, German example in 
that direction was being extensively preached ; 
and although not much practised yet in this 
country, and apparently hardly understood by 
our governing classes, yet the preachings in 
time would have had their due effect. The 
danger is now that the wheat will be thrown 
away with the tares. 

89 



90 THE PRESENT 

We had much to learn from the German 
nation ; we find that we had much to reject 
also ; but material efficiency in the cultivation 
of science is not one of the things we have to 
reject. We have to free ourselves from what 
has now become conspicuous — the evil soul 
which has cankered and devastated all their 
progress — the lying and spying and brutality 
which have poured scorn upon their science 
as well as upon their politics and philosophy. 

In praising German efficiency I referred 
just now, incidentally, to the parable of the 
Unjust Steward, and the puzzling commendation 
bestowed upon his evil practices — not because 
they were evil, but because they were for his 
special object effective. Their evil character 
was the self -destructive part of them. 

So it is with German efficiency. For we 
must include under that head not only the appli- 
cations of science, the splendid organization, 
forethought, and strenuous industry shown in 
commerce, and in the arts both of war and 
peace ; not only the legitimate discipline of the 
whole people for intelligent and economical pro- 
duction ; but also the less admirable features, 
such as the self-seeking dealings with the Press, 
the lies promulgated in neutral countries, the 
elaborate spy system organized for years, — 
which also must have been developed by the 
same methodical kind of work that has obtained 
for them a recognized place in scientific 
and historical studies. We can fully admit that 
all material measures have been taken to the 
uttermost, but the soul has been omitted. That 
is why their civilization bears such evil fruit — 
the fruit of brutality and atrocities which eclipse 
those of the Turk, in that they are carried out 
by order and with a terrorizing object. 



MATEEIAL EFFICIENCY 91 

So self-confident and self-sufficient have they; 
become that they seek to impose their organiza- 
tion on all mankind. They have imposed on 
nobody ; they have exposed themselves. They 
stand naked before an astonished Europe. 
With the telescope of the Lusltania they are 
visible even from America. 

As to their Kultur : — translation from one 
language to another has many traps. Vlcaire 
means curate and cure means vicar. So Kultur 
does not mean culture but the opposite of 
culture ; it is everything except culture, it is 
their idea of civilization, it consists chiefly in 
organization. There is nothing the matter with 
the organization, in itself it is good, but being 
devoid of soul it is insufficient : how fearfully 
insufficient we had not realized till now. 

Civilization without morality, with no wide 
outlook, no elevation of purpose, no loftiness 
of soul, no perception of beauty, no veneration 
or recognition of anything higher than the 
State, — it is blank atheism. Organization as an 
end in itself, devoid of religion and with all 
the culture of life ignored — it is like the old 
soulless political economy based on self-interest, 
with human nature omitted ;— it is the old 
temptation of Genesis, "- Ye shall be as gods " ; 
and that of the wilderness, with all the king- 
doms of the world as the reward of devil-wor- 
ship. The fruit of the tree of knowledge, of 
knowledge only, is death and damnation. So it 
was in the beginning and so it is now. 

Nevertheless the English Nation might not 
have felt quite sure on this point. We had been 
taught so long about the merits of the German 
system of organization — we knew indeed that 
in certain ways it worked well — that we might 
have felt doubtful whether after all it was not 



92 THE PRESENT 

permissible to try to accept it at their hands ; 
whether in fact it was not nourishing sustenance 
or at least wholesome medicine that they were 
offering us, even though the spoon which they 
employed for the purpose was rather jagged, and 
though there was but little jam with the powder. 

Fortunately — if we can say fortunately — their 
conduct can have left no doubt on this point in 
the mind of a single reasonable person ; for if 
that is the outcome of their system our own 
haphazard muddling along is infinitely prefer- 
able. To every one that is now clear — even to 
those who detest and despise the policy of 
muddle ; but to people with special knowledge 
it seems to have been clear before. The young 
poet Rupert Brooke, who took part in the Ant- 
werp expedition and lost his life in the Dar- 
danelles — and who came of a peace-loving 
family — writing home in 1 9 1 1 about his gener- 
ally favourable experience of friendly German 
life in Munich, expresses himself thus concern- 
ing the deeper political nefariousness which he 
found underlying the pleasant superficial aspect 
of everyday existence. 

" I have sampled and sought out German 
culture. It has changed all my political views. 
I am wildly in favour of nineteen new 
Dreadnoughts. German culture must never 
prevail ! " 

Selfishness 
But it has been said that the policy of all 
nations is really controlled by selfish considera- 
tions, and that a claim for higher motives, like 
the assertion that we accepted the present 
challenge on behalf of smaller nations, is pious 
humbug. The kind of motive which drives 
Britain into war, it is said, was illustrated by 



SELF-INTEREST 93 

our dealings with a small nation in South Africa, 
and by our abstaining from intervention on 
behalf of Bulgaria or Armenia or Macedonia. 
The determining cause seems to depend on 
whether or not we have anything to gain. 

Bernard Shaw, for instance, thus criticized 
our attitude to the present war. And in so 
doing he did not blame Britain — he did not 
blame either Britain or Germany. He con- 
sidered them both actuated simply by the only 
intelligible motive, namely self-interest. 

This used indeed to be the doctrine of the 
old Political Economy, that self-interest was 
the mainspring of life ; but whatever be the 
case with the trained Capitalist it is not the main 
motive of the Nation at large. There is a 
healthier spirit in the Nation as a whole, much 
nearer to the Christian doctrine that the way to 
attain life is through willingness to lose it for a 
high ideal. It is amazing how on the score of 
self-interest anybody can be got to fight at all. 
There can be no self-interest in losing your life 
for the sake of your country. Fighting on 
those lines is illogical — illogical but instinctive. 

Nevertheless if soldiers do shirk bayonets, or 
seek to save themselves unduly, or shelter them- 
selves behind women and children, it can be 
claimed that it is not cowardice, but a return 
to logic — a carrying out of the philosophy in 
which they have been instructed. That is the 
kind of way in which an evil doctrine defeats 
itself and contains the seeds of its own down- 
fall. That is why evil can never really dominate 
the world for long. 

The truth is that self-interest is very far from 
being the dominating motive of mankind. For 
one thing, there is always great uncertainty in 
which direction it really lies ; and even if the 



94 THE PRESENT 

well-known Christian paradox be set aside, there 
are many considerations which sway more 
strongly than strict logic. As " Bagshot " says 
" Statesmanship would be easy and peace 
secure, if mankind were only governed by self- 
interest. It is the incalculable idealism of mai 
— his passions and pride and lust for self-asser- 
tion and expansion — that destroys his peace and 
lends the glamour and the glory to his exist- 
ence. History teaches us to mistrust all 
policies which assume that nations will act as 
on a cold calculation of their material advan- 
tages they ought to act. There is always some- 
thing not ourselves which defeats the utilitarian 
within us." 

This is especially the case among those who 
have but little leisure or ability to organize 
their lives, and who live mainly by instinct. 
The services given to society by such people 
are sometimes beyond praise. 

A great error has been committed, and wrong 
has been done, by historians sometimes speaking 
of our Army as a mercenary army, and all our 
soldiers as mercenaries : as if they were fight- 
ing for pay. The contrast intended is between 
a professional army and a National army. Our 
soldiers till lately have been professional, but 
they have never been mercenaries. 

Let it be understood that a mercenary soldier 
means the type of professional fighting man 
who in the Middle Ages wandered about Europe 
wherever fighting was going on, and offered his 
services for pay to any nation that was short of 
soldiers, without regard to the cause or object 
of the fight — treating himself in fact merely as 
a weapon to be wielded by whomsoever would. 

That our men bear constandy in mind the 
opposing ideals now in conflict, is not to be 



SELF-INTEREST 95 

expected ; but they know, clearly enough, that 
they are fighting for freedom from the yoke of 
an oppressor. They may well feel that subject 
to Prussian tyranny they would refuse to live. 
To put up with petty insults continually, to 
stand by helpless while those nearest to us were 
injured, would be intolerable. Far better to 
die. With that in the background of their 
thoughts, their main activities, their valour and 
splendid pertinacious courage, are instinctive. 
No voluntary army could be formed in time of 
war if self-interest were the motive for enlist- 
ment. The British response to a call of duty 
and danger has been magnificent. 

And yet at one time a good deal was done 
which might have killed the voluntary system. 
It is not the fear of death or torture that chokes 
off recruits, it is, or it was at one time, the im- 
personal inconsideration of officials. What the 
enemy can do to them men will suffer, but at 
unnecessary official maltreatment they rebel. 

When volunteers are asked for any forlorn 
hope at colliery explosions or shipwrecks they 
are always forthcoming ; but the volunteers are 
not capriciously rejected on a variable standard 
of height, nor are they told to strip and wait an 
unconscionable time for a medical inspection, 
nor are they ruled as of no value because short 
of the tip of a little finger. These flea-bites 
are often more deterrent than real hardships. 
If it can be felt that the hardships are inevitable 
and part of the work, and are not due to mere 
official disrespect and carelessness, they are as 
gladly put up with as wounds. Death itself 
can be faced with very different feelings under 
different circumstances. We instinctively dis- 
criminate between what is inflicted by Provi- 
dence and what is wreaked on us by man. The 



96 THE PRESENT 

Titanic was regarded very differently from the 
Lusitania. 

Mere wholesale death is not so great a 
calamity. The difference between a war and 
an earthquake, for instance, is very marked. 
An earthquake is a calamity to the body, but 
not necessarily to the soul. No feelings of 
wrath are aroused, only of misfortune. Whole 
families may be blotted out by an earthquake, 
and there need be no repining on the part of 
humanity. But the feelings induced by the 
purposeful infliction of death and torture are 
very different — much more deadly, much 
more harmful. A most calamitous earthquake 
occurred during the present war, and it has 
been instructive to see the different feelings 
which it aroused. 

Nevertheless our foes expected us to be 
swayed solely by self-interest. We had 
acquired a reputation for selfishness and wealth- 
acquiring ease ; but it was a false reputation 
and did not truly represent the people of 
England. Many a time the English people 
would have been willing to interferexwith armed 
force when they saw flagrant wrong being done 
in Europe or Asia Minor, but their leaders hesi- 
tated and let the opportunity slip by. 

The accusation of selfishness is easy to make, 
and not easy to rebut ; for in our past history 
we have not been free from it. Politicians 
often think they are doing the nation good 
service by keeping a keen eye on British 
Interests ; and sometimes perhaps they are. 
But as with individuals so it is with a nation, 
its true Interest is not always in the direction 
of acquisition and greed. A nation has a 
soul too, and there are times when loss may be 
gain — certainly there are times when it may 



SELF-INTEREST 97 

be wholesome, and when it would be willingly 
acquiesced in by the people. 

The action of Italy, whatever its immediate 
cause, is glorified by noble traditions in the 
past. The world does not forget Mazzini and 
Garibaldi and Cavour ; they are a splendid 
heritage, and inspire confidence. Would that 
we had more of such traditions to our credit. 
Our actions now are handicapped by suspicion 
due to bad traditions in the past. It is not 
easy even to make use of our fleet without 
arousing animosity, — especially on the part of 
people whose self-interest is endangered, and 
who imagine some commercial motive. Objec- 
tion is raised to our stopping goods from 
Neutral Countries from entering hostile terri- 
tory, and to our interfering with Neutral com- 
merce by maintaining a kind of Blockade. But 
in such a matter we have no alternative : we 
must behave fairly and honourably not only to 
our own troops but to those of our Allies . 
They have the bulk of the fighting on land ; 
the frontier which they are facing is immensely 
longer than our portion, and it is our Allies 
who will chiefly suffer by the incoming of 
extra hostile ammunition. It is our duty to 
protect them at sea, and keep war munitions 
out of Germany — including cotton and all other 
raw material for feeding either guns or fighters. 
There is no selfishness in that. There is 
damned selfishness in not doing it. 

Yet it is true here, as always, that bare 
selfishness does not really pay — that it is really 
safer to respond to the call of duty than to 
shirk it. That is why it is possible for a 
cynic to misconceive the motive. People are 
still to be found who think that England might 
have stood out, isolated by the sea, and defied 

H 



98 THE PRESENT 

the conqueror behind its navy ; only taking 
care that it was always superior to that of 
any two or three other nations. But how long 
could this attitude of selfish isolation be main- 
tained ? 

Said Dr. Sarolea, two years before the war, — 
"■ With characteristic naivete and insular selfish- 
ness some jingoes imagine that if only the 
naval armaments of Germany could be 
stopped, all danger to England would be 
averted. But surely the greatest danger to 
England is not the invasion of England : it 
is the invasion of France and Belgium. . . . 
In the past the battles of England have been 
mainly fought on the Continent, and so they 
will be in the future. A crushing defeat of 
France in the plains of Flanders or Cham- 
pagne, with the subsequent annexation of 
Northern Belgium and of Holland, would be 
a deadly blow to English supremacy." 

If we had been mad enough to hold our 
hand last autumn, the deeds that have been 
done in Belgium would before very long have 
been done here also, and we should have had to 
bow our necks to the Prussian yoke. No one 
need deny that we are fighting for our national 
existence too. There are two kinds of war, 
and war for freedom is a holy war. 



CHAPTER XIII 

EVIL OR AGGRESSIVE WAR 

THE right translation of Kultur seems to 
be everything in organized civilization 
except culture. For true culture the 
Prussian has no use — he despises and dislikes 
it : its opposite, which is aggressive war, 
he thinks noble and exhilarating ; and what 
Mr. Wells calls " his gloomily megalomaniac 
historians " write of it as a large and glorious 
thing. In reality it is an outrage upon life, a 
smashing of homes, a mangling, a malignant 
mischief. 

The immediate object of war appears now 
to be, as Mr. Arnold Bennett expresses it, to 
tear flesh, to break bones, to suffocate, and to 
kill ; the object of Prussian war is further 
to inflict such intolerable agony that it can no 
longer be endured, — to overcome by any, even 
the most frightful, torture of body or of mind 
inflicted on combatants and non-combatants 
alike. The truth of this must be faced. And 
yet it would appear that the Prussians love and 
admire war. Why? Mr. Wells analyses their 
psychology in a plausible manner : — 

'■'■ These war- lovers are creatures of a simpler 
constitution. And they seem capable of an 
ampler hate. You will discover, if you talk 
to them skilfully, that they hold that war 

99 



100 THE PRESENT 

1 ennobles/ and that when they say ennobles 
they mean that it is destructive to the ten 
thousand things in life that they do not 
enjoy or understand or tolerate — things that 
fill them therefore with envy and perplexity — 
such things as pleasure, beauty, delicacy, 
leisure. In the cant of modern talk you will 
find them call everything that is not crude 
and forcible in life ' degenerate.' And going 
back to the very earliest writings, in the most 
bloodthirsty outpourings of the Hebrew 
prophets for example, you will find that at 
the base of the warrior spirit is hate for more 
complicated, for more refined, for more 
beautiful and happier living. The military 
peoples of the world have almost always been 
harsh and rather stupid peoples, full of a 
virtuous indignation against all they did not 
understand. The modern Prussian goes to war 
to-day with as supreme a sense of moral 
superiority as the Arabs when they swept down 
upon Egypt and North Africa. The burning of 
the library of Alexandria remains for ever the 
symbol of the triumph of militarism over civili- 
zation." 

" The State," glories Treitschke, "is no 
academy of arts ; if it neglects its power in 
favour of the ideal strivings of mankind, it 
renounces its nature and goes to ruin. . . . 
the renunciation of its own power is for the 
State in the most real sense — the sin against 
the Holy Ghost." 

The easy belief of the dull and violent that 
war "braces" arises from a real instinct of 
self-preservation, a fear of the subtler tests oi 
peace. The uncultured type of person will pre- 
serve war as long as he can. This type is to 
politics what the criminal type is to social 



AGGRESSIVE WAR 101 

order ; it is resentful and hostile to every 
attempt to organize pacific order in the 
world. 

How then have we thought it right — and in 
the highest degree right — to enter on this war? 
Ah, there is the completest distinction between 
aggressive and defensive war : between war 
waged for the lust of domination and con- 
quest, and war undertaken in defiance of a 
strong bully, and in defence of our own liberty 
and the existence of weaker or friendly nations. 

As Mr. Roosevelt has said : — 

" Any movement that fails emphatically to 
discriminate between the two kinds of peace 
and the two kinds of war is an evil not a good 
movement. Any movement that speaks against 
war in terms that would apply as much to 
such a war as that waged by Lincoln, as to 
a war waged to destroy a free people, is a 
thoroughly base and evil thing. 

" Above all, it is base and evil to clamour 
for peace in the abstract when silence is kept 
about the concrete and hideous wrongs done 
to humanity at this very moment." 

The neutral attitude of America can be criti- 
cized, — but best by American citizens ; and 
after all American influence is on the right side. 

" Germany knows that Americans condemn 
not only their manner of waging war but also 
her having brought the war about. Moreover, 
it is well for us to remember what the American 
people have done. ... It is American help 
that has saved the Belgian people from starva- 
tion ; and American ambassadors and consuls 
have done an incalculable service by their 
efforts to protect subjects of all the allied 
nations in Germany and in territory occupied 
by the German armies '' (C. Pankhurst). 



102 THE PRESENT 

And though there is a strong Peace party 
in America as elsewhere, the venerable Dr. 
Eliot, so long President of Harvard University, 
made the following solemn pronouncement to 
a meeting of Baptist ministers in Boston : — 

" Do not pray for peace now. I cannot 
conceive a worse catastrophe for the human 
race than peace in Europe now. If it were 
declared now, Germany would be in possession 
of Belgium, and German aggressive militarism 
would have triumphed. That would be a 
success for Germany after she had committed 
the greatest crime a nation can commit — 
namely, faithlessness to treaty rights, — the 
sanctity of contracts would pass for nothing, 
and civilization would be set back for cen- 
turies." 

Yet Germany is terribly strong, and its brutal 
policy of terrorism seems for a time to answer, 
by assisting the invasion of territory with a 
minimum of loss ; and it does not scruple 
blasphemously to invoke the Deity on behalf of 
its abominations. Aye, it has long been known 
that during the period of success the wicked 
flourish like a green bay-tree ; but wait for 
the test of adversity : at the breath of failure 
it is cut down, dried up, and withered. Hear 
Wordsworth : — 

" As long as guilty actions thrive, guilt is 
strong ; it has a giddiness and transport of its 
own, a hardihood not without superstition, as 
if Providence were a party to its success. But 
disaster opens the eyes of conscience, and in 
the minds of men who have been employed in 
bad actions, defeat and a feeling of punishment 
are inseparable. 

" On the other hand, the power of an un- 
blemished heart and a brave spirit is shown, 



AGGEESSIVE WAR 103 

in the events of war, not only among unpractised 
citizens and peasants, but among troops in the 
most perfect discipline. . . . This paramount 
efficacy of moral causes ... is indisputable." 

But it is possible for a moral sense to become 
perverted ; and prophetic insight is shown in 
the following extracts from Dr. Sarolea in 
191 2: — "To an Englishman war is a dwind- 
ling force, an anachronism. It may still 
sometimes be a necessity, a dura Lex, an ultima 
ratio, but it is always a monstrous calamity. In 
other words, to an Englishman war is evil, war 
is immoral. On the contrary, to the German 
war is essentially moral. Indeed, it is the 
source of the highest morality, of the most 
valuable virtues, and without war the human 
race would speedily degenerate. It is the main- 
spring of national progress. ... If war is 
a curse, then the wells of public opinion have 
been poisoned in Germany, perhaps for gene- 
rations to come. If war is a blessing, if the 
philosophy of war is indeed the gospel of the 
super -man, sooner or later the German people 
are bound to put that gospel into practice. . . . 
The war of to-morrow, therefore, will not 
be like the war of 1870, a war confined to two 
belligerent forces : it will be a universal 
European war. Nor will it be a humane war, 
subject to the rules of international law, and 
to the decrees of the Hague Tribunal : it will 
be an inexorable war ; or, to use the expression 
of von Bernhardi, it will be a ' war to the knife.' 
Nor will it be decided in a few weeks like the 
war of 1870 : it will involve a long and difficult 
campaign, or rather a succession of campaigns ; 
it will mean to either side political annihilation 
or supremacy." 

The madness of the present aggressive lust 



104 THE PRESENT 

for power can only be likened to homicidal 
mania ending in suicide. 

Where Force is treated as right it is in- 
evitable that right and wrong — 

Should lose their names, and so should justice too. 

Then everything includes itself in power, 

Power into will, will into appetite ; 

And appetite, a universal wolf, 

So doubly seconded with will and power, 

Must make perforce a universal prey, 

And last eat up himself. 

Troilus and Cressida 



CHAPTER XIV 

SAVAGERY 

O shame to men ; devil with devil damn'd 
Firm concord holds, men only disagree 
Of creatures rational, though under hope 
Of heavenly grace, and God proclaiming peace, 
Yet live in hatred, enmity and strife 
Among themselves, and levy cruel wars, 
Wasting the earth, each other to destroy. 
As if, which might induce us to accord, 
Man had not hellish foes enow besides, 
That day and night for his destruction wait. 

Paradise Lost 

THE unprecedented outburst of savagery 
which has disgraced the present war is as 
unexpected as it is unwelcome. To the 
amazement of the rest of the world, Germany 
has rushed like a highway robber upon her 
unprepared neighbours, demanded enormous 
indemnities from them, and seized their goods. 
And, as a writer in Science Progress says, " The 
evil has been heightened by the innumerable 
tricks of the robber. She made treaties which 
she had no intention of keeping — treaties with 
other nations and conventions regarding the 
rules of war. She utilized her own citizens who 
were living in foreign countries to abuse the 
hospitality shown to them by spying on their 
hosts. . . . There is clear evidence that she 
had determined on the present outbreak long 
before it occurred, and that she used the murder 

105 



106 THE PRESENT 

•of the Austrian Archduke merely as a plausible 
excuse. Like a bandit she prepared the secret 
dagger while she avowed friendship. It is a 
false statement that nations, unlike individuals, 
cannot be indicted for evil deeds, but the 
Germans have been so stupid as not to perceive 
the stigma which their actions have placed and 
will place upon their race for a century to come." 
While I write the German Chancellor is 
characteristically expressing indignant astonish- 
ment that Italy would not accept the word of 
Austria and Germany — the word of Germany ! — 
~but actually prefers to fight for its unredeemed 
provinces, as well as for the integrity of 
Belgium and Servia. 

Once more we must ask, for what are the 
Germans fighting? What is it that they 
expected to get ? 

No war was necessary for extension of trade. 
" Everywhere Germans were welcomed in 
British territory, were allowed to trade under 
our flag, were shown the secrets of our indus- 
tries and even of our armaments, were allowed 
■to acquire wealth, titles, and influence in Britain 
itself. For centuries we had remained the 
friends of our relatives the Germans. We had 
not opposed them in their ambitions. We 
raised no tariff barriers against them. We 
made no war upon their commerce, but gave to 
them and to all an open entry and an equal 
chance. There was therefore no reason based 
upon racial animosity or past disfavours to urge 
Germany to attack us." 

But even their ideas of trade appear to be 
warlike. Sir William Ramsay the chemist 
says : — 

" It has not been generally known that in 



SAVAGERY 107 

commerce, as in war, the methods employed by 
Germany have been completely organized for 
many years. Instead of looking on commerce 
as an arrangement for mutual benefit, the 
German nation has regarded it as a war. And 
just as in the present war all methods of attack 
are regarded by the military advisers of Ger- 
many as legitimate, so we are slowly awaking 
to the knowledge that German commercial and 
industrial methods have for years been 
aggressive." 

Those who started the war must have re- 
garded themselves as a virile race prepared to 
sweep away the effete dregs of a decayed past, 
yet in reality (to quote the writer in Science 
Progress again), the fight is between " nations 
which are for the most part equal in civilization 
and strength — belonging to very similar races, 
having nearly equal opportunities for agri- 
culture, manufactures, trades, arts and sciences, 
and for the most part obeying, or pretending to 
obey, the same great moral code. Under these 
circumstances, what could one of these nations 
expect to gain by flinging itself at the throat 
of others ; what then would compensate for the 
dreadful tragedies which were sure to ensue ; 
what praise of humanity could, under these 
circumstances, ever be bestowed upon the 
victor ; or what God would be ever likely to 
bless such a deed ? Yet in a moment the 
tragedy has befallen us." 

They tell us that they made the war from fear 
— fear of foreign attack — and that they in- 
fringed the neutrality of Belgium in a panic. 
That is a lie ; but it is one that they should 
be held to. If it were true it would be a 
comparatively intelligible, though a con- 
temptible, excuse. A coward is always a 



108 THE PRESENT 



rs 



danger to the community : one never know: 
when he will break out into senseless violence. 
It is well known in the west of America that a 
coward with a revolver is a serious danger. So 
also horses in a panic are liable to ruin them- 
selves and every one near them. But to under- 
take all this slaughter for the purpose of spread- 
ing German or any other culture, — there is no 
expression for that but raving lunacy. They 
uphold their sanity therefore by saying that they 
were panic-stricken. 

Though it is unlikely that they are personally 
any more cowardly than any one else, it is true 
that they have an official and authoritative kind 
of behaviour characterized by extraordinary and 
diabolically planned bullying, which is just as 
bad and proverbially has much the same result 
as cowardice. It is the fear of reprisals which 
causes them to commit atrocities ; and when 
they enter a village they are willing to massacre 
the inhabitants rather than run the risk of a 
stray shot. For a time brutality seems efficient : 
in the long run it will prove disastrous. 

Moreover their lack of training in games 
and sports, and their exclusively military exer- 
cises, lead them to indulge in unfair practices 
which would be impossible to any people 
accustomed to fair play. 

Not only do they lack chivalry and a sense 
of humour, which is conspicuously absent from 
their nation at all times, but they lack the most 
elementary notions of honourable behaviour. 
Not all of them — not all those at sea, for in- 
stance ; and of course only some of those on 
land. But certain unfair practices seem to be 
insisted on by authority ; on the principle that 
all is fair in war, — which never has been in 
the least true. That proverb about all being 



SAVAGERY 109 

fair in love and war emanates from the devil, 
and has had, and is having, vicious conse- 
quences ; because, while it sounds plausible 
and semi -humorous, it lends itself to moments 
of temptation and undermines resistance. Any 
man, whatever his creed, must feel that foul and 
dishonourable deceit is beneath his dignity as 
a man, and that if he can only succeed by 
methods of that kind he would prefer to fail ; 
since failure at any rate need not be 
dishonourable. 

In the German, absence of humour has 
become tragic. They are not wholly deficient 
in the quality ; they are able to recognize 
the humorous side of people in the water 
trying to clamber up the slippery side of an 
up -turned boat. But it is not among their 
strongest qualities. Their indignation at the 
idea that one of their submarines might be 
attacked by a merchant vessel which it was 
intending to sink, is evidence of this. It was 
probably not in the Berlin Zoological Gardens, 
but it might have been, that the following 
inscription was placed upon a cage : — 

This animal is vicious. 

When attacked it defends itself. 1 

So they issue a complaint to neutral Powers 
about the hostile attitude of merchant vessels 
when threatened by a submarine. So also they 
were profoundly moved to indignation by the 
attitude of Belgium, which behaved more like 
a porcupine than a sheep or a hare, and not 
only resented but actively opposed the encroach- 
ment of its territory by an armed force. What 
incredible impudence ! 

1 Cet animal est tres mediant 
Quand on l'attaque, il se defend. 



110 THE PRESENT 






The fact of unexpected opposition seems to 
arouse extraordinary feelings of animosity in 
high quarters in Germany — quarters which we 
must impersonate as the Kaiser, without pre- 
suming on any personal judgement. The best 
excuse that can be made for this indignant t 
anger is one made by one of the characters, an 
old American dame, in Mrs. Sedgwick's novel 
Tante : — 

" But 1 guess we can't judge people like 
Mercedes, Karen. When you go through life 
like a mowing-machine and see everyone flatten 
out before you, you must get kind of exalted 
ideas about yourself. If anything happens that 
makes a hitch, or if anybody don't flatten 
out, why it must seem to you as if they were 
wrong in some way, doing you an injury." 

Effects of Evil Theory 

However superior in practice their conduct 
may be in the sense of being nearer to what 
they regard as their rightful will, the Prussian 
ideals as set forth by its leading politicians 
and professors are extraordinarily base. So 
wrong-headed and preposterous have their 
theories been that it has been difficult to take 
them seriously ; we could not believe that any 
nation could act up to the mad doctrines and 
put in practice the crazy precepts of Nietzsche 
and his disciples, or regard them in any but a 
figurative and hyperbolic sense. The world 
has been inclined to laugh such vagaries to 
scorn, until the present outburst of intolerable 
evil has forced upon us the truth of the old 
theological dogma that perverted beliefs and 
false doctrines are the most deadly of all forms 
of evil, because most serious in their conse- 



SAVAGERY 111 

quences, — leading in fact to nothing less tham 
damnation. 

Conduct insufficiently restrained by soundi 
faith, is lamentable enough but human. But 
for an evil faith to drag conduct down below 
the bestial level, and to drown the remonstrance 
of natural instincts in a flood of guile, — that is 
not human at all but devilish. 

We can hardly suppose that by a malign 
miracle the whole German nation has suddenly 
willed evil, but the practical outcome is like 
that. Theories become dangerous when they 
favour and justify the lowest impulses. 

"Some of their own militarist fanatics have 
said that they have no political aptitude ; and> 
they prove that now in their devotion to a 
theory of self-preservation which is leaving 
them without a friend in the civilized world. 
War, they believe, is in all ages a return to 
barbarism ; but how if the world has reached; 
a stage at which it will not allow any nation to 
return to barbarism, at which the conscious 
barbarian is treated as the enemy of the human 
race ? Then he has no chance unless he is 
stronger than the human race. And the 
Germans now have allowed their theory to ride 
them almost into that desperate pass. They 
have done what they hoped to do ; they have 
frightened the world, and it laughs at them no- 
longer." 

To say that war licenses acts of every kind- 
is to make a quite irrational statement. For 
what is the object of waging war? Not surely 
to destroy the rest of humanity, but to 
do something useful either for the whole- 
human race or at least for one's own nation.. 
Hence war, like other things, had become 
civilized, and bounds were set to the permissible.- 



112 THE PRESENT 

amount of destruction and devastation ; of 
which, alas ! a sufficiency must always be 
caused . 

What object can be gained by a return to 
savagery, — by letting loose mere passion with- 
out any intelligent control ? Such a procedure 
must defeat its own ends, whatever they are. 
But to a reasonable being it can have no ends ; 
it cannot possibly have any claim to culture, 
nor can it assist in spreading the ideas and 
manners of the conqueror ; for if those are 
the outcome of its civilization it stands self- 
condemned. So that even if successful in over- 
coming resistance, and making a cowed desert 
of the rest of the world, it would be beneath 
contempt as a missionary effort. 

It is the same in war as in games. The 
object is not the mere winning. To win a 
game by unfair practices, or by brutality, is 
not winning at all. The object of a football 
team, though apparently to place a ball between 
two posts, or over a certain bar, is not an object 
which justifies any and every method of 
achieving it. There would be no credit in 
taking the other side at some disadvantage, 
in handicapping them in some unfair way, or 
in trying to do it when they were not looking. 
Victory so achieved is worthless ; and if, after 
all that has been done, the Germans now turned 
out ultimately victorious, their victory could 
be nothing but dust and ashes. 

Defeat is now their only hope, — they have 
left no other loophole ; it is the only channel 
through which they can return to sanity, — and 
the sooner it comes now, the better for them and 
for everybody. 

A war carried on for no other object than 
the gratuitous infliction of suffering is destruc- 



SAVAGERY 113 

tive to those who wage it, and the licence 
allowed or enforced on a soldiery must be sub- 
versive of all discipline and have dire conse- 
quences after a return to civil life. 

They err who count it glorious to subdue 

By conquest far and wide, to overrun 

Large countries, and in field great battles win, 

Great cities by assault ; what do these worthies, 

But rob, and spoil, burn, slaughter, and enslave 

Peaceable nations, neighbouring or remote. . . . 

Paradise Regained 



CHAPTER XV 

NON-RESISTANCE 
AND DEFENSIVE WAR 

GOOD people have been puzzled by the 
doctrine of non-resistance. There are 
certain cases in which non-resistance may; 
be legitimate, a few in which it is admirable : 
there are other cases when it would be grossly 
immoral. There is no real practical difficulty 
in discriminating between these cases, though 
the difference is perhaps not easy to formulate. 
Our instincts or intuitions are often more to 
be trusted than our theories. 

Non-resistance may be legitimate enough 
about some personal injury, or about some weak 
yielding to temptation such as an understand- 
able theft ; and the defaulter may be forgiven, 
— sometimes with happy results. It is the kind 
of thing that must be done every day in a 
large community, and it is done most readily 
by those who have themselves experienced the 
evil effects of harsh treatment. 

While in Canada I once heard that good man 
Prince Kropotkin, whom Russia of the past had 
imprisoned and expatriated for his opinions, 
catechized about his doctrine of non-resistance. 
" Do you mean to say that if a man stole your 
purse you would not have him put in prison? " 
His reply was an impressive one — " No ; no 

114 



NON-RESISTANCE 115 

more would you if you had ever been in 
one. 

In cases where the punishment far exceeds 
the crime it is better to put up with an injury 
than commit a greater one. That is common- 
sense and simply human, and in accordance 
with our instincts if we have sufficient illumina- 
tion to recognize it. In Mr. Galsworthy's 
powerful plays, The Silver Box, and Justice, 
those who put the law in motion over a trifle 
must have deeply regretted their precipitancy 
before the end. 

But all this natural restraint on conduct does 
not mean that we should refrain from defending 
the helpless, nor that we should fail to stand 
up for the right. A passive attitude of defiance, 
though itself far from impotent, is not suffi- 
cient ; there must be an active and positive 
attack on certain evils as well. The cleansing 
of the Temple shows, if any demonstration were 
needed, that bold and violent activity in face 
of flagrant and disgraceful wrong can be essen- 
tially Christian. And if the foe has guns and 
machinery we must employ guns and machinery 
too. Actual physical conflict is not out of har- 
mony with the plan of creation ; it represents 
a stage in evolution — not a very high stage, 
and one that the world must ultimately out- 
grow ; — but much of the world is not yet com- 
pletely beyond the tooth and claw period of 
animal existence. 

It may be a puzzle, but we must trust our, 
higher intuition ; we shall find absolute sup- 
port there for defensive fighting, though none 
for selfish aggression ; nor shall we find any 
justification for treachery or for insidious and 
lying statecraft, even though we encounter these 
evils rampant on the enemy's side — as we do. 



116 THE PRESENT 

That verse of the National Anthem which we 
generally deprecate is truly appropriate just 
now : — 

Oh Lord our God arise, 
Scatter our enemies, 

And make them fall ; 
Confound their politics, 
Frustrate their knavish tricks, 
On Thee our hopes we fix, 

God save us all. 

There is such a thing as righteous indignation. 

The following quotation is not from the Old 
Testament — an outburst of revolt against 
heathen persecution — it is in that most Christian 
and evangelical letter, The Epistle to the 
Romans. It might be printed in capitals as 
an inspired expression of deep and righteous 
indignation : — 

" Their throat is an open sepulchre ; with 
their tongues they have used deceit ; the poison 
of asps is under their lips : whose mouth is full 
of cursing and bitterness : Their feet are swift 
to shed blood ; Destruction and misery are in 
their ways ; and the way of peace have they not 
known : There is no fear of God before their 
eyes " {Romans hi. 13). 

I would that all neutral nations, or at any rate 
so great and powerful a people as Americans, 
could have seen their way to express their feel- 
ings in similarly forcible language, when inter- 
national law and the dictates of common 
humanity were grossly violated, and could have 
taken honourable action accordingly. No fight- 
ing was necessary ; the weapon of the boycott 
would have been amply sufficient as a sequel 
to denunciation ; and they would have done 
their nation and the flag much honour. 

A non-fighting declaration of judicial hos- 



NON-RESISTANCE 117 

tility in the interests of civilization, and as 
representing the police of the world, could have 
been made. 

As an excuse for non-intervention it has been 
claimed that many of the citizens of the United 
States are German. That is only an answer if 
Americans are no longer to be considered as 
of our blood. In that case it is a foreign 
country, and no longer the America of our 
hopes. The federation of the English-speak- 
ing race, so long looked forward to— where is it ! 

But I 'doubt not that much will yet be done ; 
the intervention needed from a non-European 
nation is so simple, so easily applied, so honour- 
able, and so effective. Apart from financial 
considerations, how the American citizen would 
rejoice to see the Stars and Stripes once more 
arrayed on the side of freedom and honour and 
in defence of truth and justice and right ! 

Seldom indeed in any war is the issue so 
clear as in the present one. The tearing up of 
treaties, the contempt of the written word, the 
treachery, the lying, and above all the un- 
speakable cruelties, put our enemy outside the 
pale of civilization, and he should be boycotted 
with firmness and decision. The sooner these 
evils are eradicated from the planet the better, 
and now is the time for attacking them in con- 
centrated form . 

The policy of abstention, and apparently 
bland acceptance not only of breaches of inter- 
national law but of crimes against humanity, 
until some national affront is offered which can- 
not be ignored, will be felt hereafter a disgrace. 

" He that is not with us is against us," is 
now being manifestly said by the supreme 
Power of Goodness, — that power which is being 
denied and blasphemously assailed. 



118 THE PRESENT 

And how much might be done ! 

" For, methinks, I see the great work indeed 
in hand against the abusers of the world, where- 
in it is no greater fault to have confidence in 
man's power, than it is too hastily to despair 
of God's work." ■ 

But man's power, in such things, is also great, 
when exercised by a whole people for the right. 
As Wordsworth says, in a Sonnet of 1 8 1 1 : — 

The power of armies is a visible thing, 
Formal, and circumscribed in time and space ; 
But who the limits of that power shall trace 
Which a brave People into light can bring 
Or hide, at will, — for freedom combating, 
By just revenge inflamed? 

War as Suppuration 

War is not a healthy form of activity, it is 
a pathological symptom, a sign of disease ; 
though truly it may be beneficent in the long 
run, as inflammation is beneficent. When 
things are wrong there must be a struggle to 
set them right, and the effort must involve 
pain and sacrifice. If the morbid microbes 
succumb permanently to the attack of our 
phagocytes, the result is renewed health. A 
deep-seated disease calls for desperate remedies, 
and inflammation may have healthy and cura- 
tive consequences. The virulence of the inflam- 
mation is a sign of the severity of the disease. 

But we need a Lister to show us a better way 
than suppuration, an antiseptic or aseptic sur- 
gery, to deal with the wounds of the body 
politic. The most obvious evil in humanity at 
present is the Prussian spirit, its philosophy, its 
ideals, and its practice. These must be ex- 

1 The elder Sidney, — treating of the war in the Netherlands 
against Philip of Spain. 



DEFENSIVE WAR 119 

tirpated or humanity will succumb. But these 
are not the only evils, they are conspicuous, they 
are recognized, they are being attacked ; but 
there are others more deep-seated, barely sus- 
pected, less violent, but hardly less dangerous. 
While we are cleansing the Temple let us see to 
it that the work is done thoroughly. 

War is not always opposed to Christianity : 
there are worse evils than death. It is 
Christian to make a stand for the right, 
though never in a self-seeking spirit. If 
Germany had only disagreed with our methods 
and had tried doctrines of its own, had 
vigorously competed with us in commerce but 
had otherwise kept itself to itself, we should 
never have attacked it. If any Statesman had 
been wicked enough to attempt such a war, the 
working classes would not have allowed it. 
Their pronouncements for peace and brother- 
hood were clear — clear enough on the passive 
side. But they did not go far enough ; their 
willingness to supply actual help was doubtful. 
England has a reputation for inertia and selfish- 
ness ; and it was this reputation for putting 
money-bags first, for regarding Turkish bonds 
more than the wrongs of Bulgaria and Armenia 
— whether the reputation was deserved or not — 
which misled people. Sir Edward Grey was 
not quite certain that the English people would 
go to war in defence of Belgium ; he was 
careful to say that the Country must decide, 
but that he thought it would. A few Labour 
Members — good men in intention — are mistaken 
still, and adhere to their one-sided passive 
statement of peace and brotherhood and 
goodwill. 

But goodwill on the negative side is not 
enough ; there comes a time when activity is 



120 THE PRESENT 

necessary, and when anything else is unchristian 
and inhuman. To maintain brotherhood effec- 
tively requires something more than passivity : 
there is no brotherhood nor even neighbourli- 
ness in passing by on the other side. Active 
interference is required when an enemy tries 
to trample on a friend, At that stage we now 
are : and thank God we have responded 1 

To a nation exuberantly proud of its own 
organization and social structure, and anxious 
to force them on all the rest of the world and 
cram them down its throat by force, we say : — 

Convert us by influence and teachings and 
reasonableness, if you can, and we will retaliate 
in kind ; and in the course of the discussion 
we will remain brothers in argument, as we 
can be brothers in a football contest or any 
other fair game. But come to us with weapons, 
— aye, or go to our friends and Allies with 
weapons, to hack your way through and to 
impose your will on them — we will meet you 
with weapons also ; and for the good of the 
world, and under the banner of Christ, we will 
resist you to the death. 

The present war has made this clear. It 
would have been better if it had been clear 
before ; but nothing can really make things 
clear except acts. Deeds are the test of faith. 
By their fruits ye shall know them. By their 
fruits we can test the doctrine of the Politicians 
and Professors of Berlin. Neutrality in face of 
outrages like these would be a crime. To sit 
still and allow their doctrines to be forced on 
the whole civilized world would be false to our 
trust — to ignore our mission, to deny our 
Master. It is in his name we are fighting, and 
we can plead his example . 



CHAPTER XVI 

CHRISTIANITY AND PACIFISM 

THOSE who emphasize as Christian the 
doctrine of non-resistance and the power 
of meekness and long-suffering, should 
remember that Christ came to show us those 
aspects of Deity which we might otherwise have 
missed. He did not emphasize the strong and 
fierce and dangerous aspects, except very inci- 
dentally and occasionally. He did not conceal 
them, but there was little need for calling atten- 
tion to those aspects, — Nature and History and 
common experience do that ; the Hebrew 
Scriptures and Mosaic Law are sufficiently 
explicit ; those attributes have always been 
familiar to all races of mankind. But the 
gentler aspects have not been so familiar, and 
those were what needed to be emphasized, — 
the aspects of Love and Friendliness and Com- 
passion — the otherwise almost incredible attri- 
butes of Sympathy and Fellow-feeling. Even 
the attributes associated with the term " child- 
like " cannot be alien from the fullness of the 
Godhead . 

Attending now to the Christian revelation, 
we must admit that there are many ingredients 
in the composition of human life with which 
Christ was not directly concerned ; and war is 
one of them. For his lifetime happened in a 

period — one of the few periods — of world peace. 

121 



122 THE PRESENT 

Consequently we cannot say from direct evi- 
dence what his attitude to a righteous war 
would have been ; that is, a war undertaken 
from no selfish motive, but in defence of right, 
of home, and of the weak. We know how- 
ever, unless we resolutely blind ourselves to 
facts, that his attitude would not have been one 
of inattention or non-resistance ; we can judge 
fairly well from his parable of the wolf and 
the sheep-fold, — the good shepherd fought the 
wolf, while the hireling took refuge in igno- 
minious flight ; we know it from his use of 
violence in the cleansing of the Temple, but we 
know it still more from his denunciations. He 
did not mince matters about the wrath to come. 
It must be remembered, — according to the 
view of orthodox Christianity, and in accord- 
ance doubtless with the views of those who 
claim in excessive detail supernatural sanction 
for the deeds and words of their Master, — that 
bodily violence in face of wrong was in his 
case unnecessary ; denunciation was sufficient, 
since his denunciations, unlike ours, were effec- 
tive. Witness the case of the barren fig-tree. 
His Kingdom was not of this world, and there 
was no need for his servants to fight. Legions 
of angels were at his disposal ; and the most 
scathing denunciation and summoning of woe 
was never wanting when wickedness was accom- 
panied by knowledge and when the wrongdoer 
erred in the face of light. There was not a 
trace of pacifist non-resistance on his part, 
save in respect of personal injuries. He was 
not one to wash his hands and excuse himself 
from intervention when the innocent was un- 
justly accused, or when confronted with the 
powers of Satan. No, the typical pacifist was 
Pilate ! 



CHRISTIANITY AND PACIFISM 123 

But, by Christ, the Devil and all his works 
were resisted to the death. In speaking of 
assaults on children he said : " Whosoever 
offend one of these little ones, it were better 
for him that a millstone be hung about his 
neck and that he be drowned in the depths of 
the sea " — meaning that any violent death was 
preferable to the fate that was actually in store 
for such a monster. So it was also that he 
denounced the orthodox religious people of his 
time as religious hypocrites who were devour- 
ing widows' houses and for a pretence making 
long prayers, — " Ye serpents, ye generation of 
vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of 
hell ! " With punishments and penalties like 
these at his command there was little need for 
bodily violence of any kind. " Fear not them," 
he said, " which can only kill the body and 
afterwards have no more power ; but fear Him 
who can cast both body and soul into hell. Yea, 
I say unto you, fear Him I " There is no 
leniency, no pacific treatment of wrong here, 
nor is laxness anywhere to be found in the 
universe. Evil may be allowed to accumulate 
for a time, but sooner or later Nemesis arrives. 

It is the divine attributes of Deity that we 
have to learn, not their merely human aspect 
only ; and some of those Attributes are fierce 
and inexorable. With all the powers of the 
Universe at His command He can stand by 
while inhuman tortures are inflicted, and inter- 
fere no more than He did at the scourging and 
the crucifixion. 

Great pain can evidently be tolerated by 
One who sees both before and after, with far- 
reaching vision. Death and bodily pain are not 
the worst of evils ; and slaughter — even whole- 
sale slaughter — is from time to time permitted, if 



124 THE PRESENT 

thereby evils can be eradicated from humanity 
which otherwise would remain dormant. 

Christ was not the only revelation of the 
attributes of Deity vouchsafed to us. Surely 
people admit that the whole realm of Nature is 
another channel of intelligence ; and we have 
our instincts also. We can learn by studying 
the mind of man as well as the starry heavens. 
The attributes we so learn are not the ones 
emphasized by Christ, — true, — the danger was 
that the human race should continue to attend 
to those other channels too exclusively ; but it is 
folly now to take refuge in the other extreme. 

One fact that is vividly worth remembering 
at the present time is that God does not act 
without agents ; it is only through suitable 
agents that the physical world is affected at 
all ; it is probably through appropriate agents 
that Divine action is always taken. He acts in 
accordance with law and order ; if evil is to be 
exterminated it is exterminated by means, and 
by appropriate and available means. When 
there was a revolt in heaven, orthodox people 
are given to understand that it was put down by 
suitable means, by contest and violence, in other 
words by war. It was not tolerated nor treated 
leniently. 

Evil is not treated leniently in this universe. 
The punishment of sin is awful. Are not our 
sensitive nerves able to convey to us agonies of 
pain? Suffering is the badge of all our tribe. 
These things had been well rubbed into the 
Jewish nation : they are referred to as well- 
known, but the immediate era of Christ's 
presence on earth was " the acceptable year 
of the Lord." " The day of vengeance of 
our God " had not then come ; but he never 
concealed the fact that come it would. 



CHRISTIANITY AND PACIFISM 125 

And the execution of vengeance requires 
agents. If we are worthy, we may be employed 
for the purpose : if we are not worthy, doubtless 
other agents can be used. Not the sword only, 
but the noisome beast and the pestilence can 
be brought into service. But there are times 
when we can be honoured by being enrolled 
under a Divine Commission, and when the 
rooting out of evil is entrusted to us ; and 
then, it is upon our character and conduct in 
the past that our efficacy and even our method 
will depend. If we are strong enough, and 
have clean hands and a record for strict justice, 
and have never over-reached or bullied a 
weaker neighbour or coveted or grabbed his 
goods, — then our bare word may suffice to pre- 
vent some great evil from befalling mankind, 
and may bring shame and repentance to the 
sinner. But if we are less worthy than that, 
then we too must be punished, even while we 
are relatively honoured, by being called upon 
to inflict and to suffer ills of various kinds — 
the inevitable result of national sin. 

When a nation behaves as the German nation 
has behaved we are justified in sharing with 
the Highest a blaze of righteous anger, and 
we are summoned to the activities which accom- 
pany such anger. Wherever tyranny and vice 
are rampant, virtue means protest and strenuous 
activity. As the sword of the Lord, and in the 
power of His might, we must slay and extir- 
pate the evil men who are responsible for the 
outrages to humanity and who have dragged 
the nation down till they approve them. " Shall 
I not visit for these things ? saith the Lord ; 
shall not my soul be avenged on such a 
nation as this? "■ 



CHAPTER XVII 

"LOVE YOUR ENEMIES" 

NOT only the rulers have gone wrong, but 
the German people also. The people 
have shown themselves marvellously 
docile, their emotions being apparently under 
State control ; and, when told to hate, they, 
use every means to stimulate that feeling. One 
of their weaknesses, all along, has been 
excessive mental sub-division, — trusting the 
specialist, sub-dividing the complexity of life 
until they have lost all comprehensive grasp ; 
so the reins have now slipped from their fingers, 
and over everything of importance, even over 
their own passions, they have lost control. Even 
their Professors are State officials. The Ger- 
man Professor, as has been said, does not so 
much profess as officiate ; and the whole class 
has shown itself amenable to political influ- 
ence. A wonderful and horrible thing has been 
committed in the land : the Professors teach 
falsely, Politicians bear rule by their means, 
and the people love to have it so. 

They are miserably deceived, but even so 
we have no hatred for them. The injunction to 
love our enemies is sometimes said to be im- 
possibly hard, but essentially and instinctively 
we are obeying it. No bitterness, but only 
honour, is felt for foes who do their duty 
strenuously and die or suffer heroically. How 

126 



"LOVE YOUR ENEMIES' 127 

eagerly the nation has seized every opportunity 
of honouring sailors who in the course of their 
work have done us legitimate damage. There 
is a wholesome spirit in fighting a fierce and 
honourable foe who plays the game. We have 
shown in South Africa and in the Soudan that 
we can honour such foes, and feel no bitterness 
against them. How willingly we would do 
the same with the Germans if they gave us any 
opportunity, — as some few of them have, — has 
already been proved. They misunderstand it, 
they think it cowardice or hypocrisy, — some- 
thing which they can better understand. But 
we know that it is nothing of the kind ; in 
serious matters like that we are not hypocrites, 
and our practice really comes up to, and often 
exceeds, our profession. 

In Mr. Begbie's interesting account of all 
the multifarious activity he saw behind the 
English lines in France, he narrates the follow- 
ing :— 

" The other day a doctor fell in with a 
British soldier whose blood was maddened by 
what he had seen of German treatment of our 
wounded men. ' Do you know what I mean 
to do,' he demanded, 4 when I come across 
one of their wounded ? I mean to put my boot 
in his ugly face.' The doctor replied : ' No, 
you won't ; it's not in your nature. I'll tell 
you what you will do — you'll give him a drink 
out of your water-bottle.' To which the soldier, 
after a pause in which he searched the doctor's 
face, made grumbling and regretful answer : 
'Well, maybe I shall.' " 

And when we think of the ministers of 
mercy, the doctors and nurses who brave danger 
and witness horrors to succour the wounded, 
who accompany the engines of destruction for 



128 THE PRESENT 

the illogical but beautiful reason of lessening 
as quickly as possible the injuries they do, — 

" Is it not as if behind a tidal wave of flame 
risen from the very core of hell's furnaces there 
followed a squadron of the heavenly host, whose 
faces shine with the beauty of the grace of 
God?" 

It cannot truly be said that the British have 
been unchivalrous . To refrain from protesting 
too much good intention is wise, for it is hard 
to raise conduct to an ideal level ; and failure 
to achieve what we aim at, looks like hypocrisy. 
There are few vices to which as a nation we 
are less prone. The Germans are not hypo- 
crites either, but then they strenuously and 
loudly profess evil. It cannot be always easy 
to act up fully even to their profession, though 
some of them have made far too successful 
efforts . 

The injunction translated " Love your 
enemies," if pressed unduly and beyond its 
reasonable meaning, may sound like an im- 
possible and futile counsel ; it would have been 
more readily understood if it had been worded 
— Honour and respect your foe, be ready to 
recognize good in him and to meet him half 
way. In all this our nation has a clean record. 

But the translation is right. To love people 
as ourselves does not mean to be uncritical 
towards them, or to refrain from blaming or 
punishing them. Far from it : the best human 
nature has always been severe on its own fail- 
ings and frailties and sins. But it does mean 
trying to understand, to see their point of view, 
to rejoice at any spark of good and of honour- 
able conduct which may be detected. In so 
far as there are none such— approbation and 
affection would be utterly misplaced. 



"LOVE YOUR ENEMIES" 129 

But think of the barbarous futility of an 
opposite injunction, and of the extraordinary 
state of mind which can lead people to regard 
the injunction " Hate your enemies " as a 
national or human asset ! l 

The good faith and trustfulness of the 
German people have been imposed upon, and 
they have been so misinformed and misled 
about this war, and about the diplomacy 
which led to it, that they have made them- 
selves willing tools ; but never in a spirit of 
conscious wrong. 

A German whose eyes have been opened, 
writing for his own people, has explained to 
them the wickedness of the diplomacy of both 1 
Germany and Austria, in a book called J' Accuse 
quite recently published in German at 
Lausanne ; but the circulation of the book in 
Germany will surely be forbidden. From its 
epilogue I translate but a brief sentence or, 
two : — 

' The confidence of the German nation has 
been shamefully abused by its leaders and 
rulers ; round its eyes, once so clear-sighted, 
the dark band of ignorance has been tied. Out 
of peace-loving citizens have been made fighters 
filled with hate and vengeance ; out of repre- 
sentatives of high culture and intelligence, blind 
and narrow devotees. . . . 

" They have ruined and blinded the German 
nation in order that they might be able to 
hound it into a war which it had never fore- 

1 The absence of reciprocation on our side is illustrated by 
the following : — 

At smoking concerts near the front I am told that German 
prisoners sometimes contribute musical items to the programme, and 
that occasionally the chairman's call takes this form : " Mr. Franz 
Schmidt will now oblige with the Song of 'ate." 
K 



130 THE PRESENT 

seen, never intended, and never wished. To 
make it ' free,' they have brought it into 
slavery. ... A faithful son of Germania, I 
see the deluded mother stumbling to the preci- 
pice, and spring forward to save her from the 
fatal fall. Is it still permitted in the Germany 
of to-day to speak the truth? Or have things 
already gone so far that lies only are 
fitting ? . . . 

" Hundreds of thousands can be guarded 
from death, the German nation from ruin, — now, 
but now only — , if truth can make its way into 
the hearts of the German people. For truth 
is a call to halt, while lies are a step forward 
on the road to ruin. 

" The truth will but serve our adversaries, — 
do you think ? You great children, closing your 
eyes to escape danger ! Your adversaries have 
long known it. . . . But you, Germany, in- 
corrigibly trustful dreamer, you alone are still 
slumbering, — are still sleeping peacefully, in all 
your unrighteousness, the sleep of the 
righteous . ' ' 

Yes, the cause still seems righteous in the 
eyes of the people, and still they are willing 
nobly to sacrifice everything for its attainment ; 
that is why we can still respect them. 

'" We have seen our enemies dying fine 
deaths bravely for a cause which, to our think- 
ing, is neither brave nor fine ; and when they 
have died like that, for a cause like that, we 
give them all that we can, and all that we 
may — the respect brave men deserve. We have 
hated a cause ; we have not . hated, and we 
pray that we may never hate, the combatants." 

Yet the present is no era for untimely 
generosity. Those who advocate treating the 
enemy well, and giving him good terms, should 



"LOVE YOUR ENEMIES" 131 

be sure first that we have the upper hand, — 
should be sure indeed that the enemy realizes 
and admits that fact — otherwise it will seem 
only like weakness. A farmer catching a culprit 
in his apple orchard may, if he chooses, refrain 
from thrashing the boy he has caught, and 
even give him a few apples and tell him not to 
come again. But if, instead of a boy, he 
encounters a man with a bludgeon, — a friendly 
and charitable treatment of the violent culprit 
may be otherwise interpreted ; and the pacifist 
farmer might soon find that his orchard had to 
be abandoned altogether. Indeed that would 
be the ultimate result of non-resi stance, pressed 
to extremes, in face of a truculent foe ; there 
would be nothing for it but to get of! the earth. 
There have doubtless been saintly individuals, 
here and there, whose personal and divine 
dominance was such as to disarm even a 
truculent foe. If you have a personality such 
as that, developed during a lifetime of saint- 
hood, nothing further need be said ; and no 
instruction is required by such a one ; his 
behaviour would be part of his character, and 
his influence may be extraordinary. But for 
ordinary untrained and ungifted persons to 
attempt conduct on this level because they 
admire it, when the whole foundation on which 
it is built is non-existent, is certainly unwise 
and cannot but lead to disaster. The apostolic 
injunction " Let this mind be in you which 
was also in Christ Jesus " is sane and right and 
strong ; and if that is the state of your mind 
you are above exhortation or rebuke. But if 
it be not the state of your mind, if you have not 
led the life which makes that possible, if you 
are only pretending that your nrind is in that 
condition, — then the pretence will become 



132 THE PRESENT 

apparent, and your actions will discredit your- 
self and disable your friends : besides doing 
mortal injury to the cause you have at heart. 
There are good people about to-day whose 
desire for good is genuine enough, though their 
power and wisdom are terribly limited. So 
far as lies in their power they are, without 
intending it, encouraging the foe. 

It is the same in industrial war — to which 
some of those who now advocate premature 
and easy conditions of peace may be more 
accustomed. While your, enemy is undefeated, 
an offer of easy terms is a sign of weakness. 
Ordinary commercial bargaining would obvi- 
ously be jeopardized by premature offer of easy 
terms. Only when you are really master, and 
the foe (whether it be workmen in a strike 
or masters in a lock-out) is defeated, can 
leniency and generosity be proposed without 
their being not only misunderstood but actually 
detrimental. All such talk at the present time 
is a danger to the Commonwealth, especially 
if its importance — as is all too likely — be over- 
rated by the foe. 

But what a period it is through which we 
are passing, one of the scourging and purify- 
ing epochs of the world's history ! The good 
feeling and the generosity are only untimely : 
presently when peace reigns once more, they 
will resume their value, and be an asset to 
mankind. Tribulation is always grievous, and 
the pain suffered by kindly and tender souls 
must be severe ; but it is the method necessary 
for threshing out the grain, and we are now 
buying the threshing-floor that in the future 
may stay the plague. 

Saddened and serious the nation will hence- 
forth be, sobered by the loss of so many bright 



"LOVE YOUR ENEMIES" 133 

young lives, — brilliant, some of them, with every 
worldly prospect, heirs of great estates, in- 
heritors of great names, to human ken lost 
and gone — 

Oh Iago, the pity of it ; the pity of it, Iago ! 

And those who return, saved as by fire, what 
scenes they will have witnessed, what memories 
will cling round them, what horrors have they 
not been through ? For a generation at least 
frivolity will surely be burned out of the land, 
a consuming fire will have passed over it ; 
and an outpouring of the Spirit, long expected, 
will meet with keener receptivity than ever 
before. 

Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead ! 
There's none of these so lonely and poor of old 
Bat dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold, 



Honour has come back, as a king, to earth, 
And paid his subjects vvith a royal wage ; 
And nobleness walks in our ways again ; 
And we have come into our heritage. 

We have reaped the fruits of the past, we 
are struggling through the present ; only those 
now young will enter upon the future — a future 
clouded with anxiety but brightened with hope. 

'To you, young men, it has been given by a 
tragic fate to see with your eyes and hear with 
your ears what war really is. Old men made 
it, but you must wage it — with what courage, 
with what generosity, with what sacrifice of 
what hopes, they best know who best know 
you. If you return from this ordeal, remember 
what it has been. Do not listen to the shouts 
of victory, do not snuff the incense of applause ; 
but keep your inner vision fixed on the facts 



134 THE PRESENT 

you have faced. You have seen battleships, 
bayonets, and guns, and you know them for 
that they are, forms of. evil thought. Think 
other thoughts, love other loves, youth of 
England and of the world ! You have been 
through hell and purgatory. Climb now the 
rocky stair that leads to the sacred mount." 



PART III 

THE FUTURE 

" Thy kingdom come " 



When history records its final verdict upon this 
great war and decides upon its real causes, it will 
be influenced not so much by what we are saying 
now, as by what we do afterwards. 

Much remains 
To conquer still, peace hath her victories 
No less renown'd than war. . . . 




CHAPTER XVIII 

THE OUTCOME 

HE toil and suffering are not over yet, the 
need for continued exertion is patent ; it 
is too soon to estimate the consequences, 
but the pain and danger have been so severe 
that surely the nation will take warning, surely 
it will not let itself sink back into old habits, 
and once more become sluggish and luxurious. 
Not England only but Europe should be 
renewed in the spirit of its mind. The earth 
might be so fine a habitation for an ennobled 
human race ; the physical beauty of its early 
summer — which to some percipient souls is so 
intense as to be hardly bearable — is only typical 
of what might be throughout, if man also 
became harmonious. If, in some strange in- 
direct way, the present strife contributed towards 
an effective realization of this truth, the out- 
come would be worth even the cost. 

But it must be admitted that the result of the 
war must be dependent on the progress our 
civilization has made during the era of peace. 
We cannot suddenly change our character ; 
what we can do is to use the opportunity to 
develop and foster those wholesome attributes 
which might otherwise have lain dormant — to 
display the power and the goodwill which only a 
strong stimulus can bring into the light of day. 

137 



138 THE FUTURE 

Humanity rises under stress, it responds to a 
strenuous call, and the same individuals who 
have gone on working and grumbling and 
living ordinarily most of their lives are found 
to behave as heroes when danger is imminent 
or when the call of duty comes. War is by no 
means the only real stimulus : opportunities 
for heroism arise in times of peace also ; and, 
whether at a coalpit, or a fire, or a shipwreck, 
men are able, without self -consciousness or any 
heroics, to perform prodigies of valour and 
willingly to risk their lives. Daily routine is 
often too dull to bring out the best in human 
nature ; only the really strong soul can live 
heroically amid the ordinary humdrum affairs 
of life. That seems to be a test beyond 
ordinary human nature ; yet the heroism is 
there all the time, often unsuspected, — it only 
needs circumstances to call it out. T. H. Green 
used to say that " one of the chief trials of life 
was its slowness." What modern courage is 
called on to face is not, as in war, the storm and 
the whirlwind with their grandeur and romance, 
but what William James called " the steady 
drizzle " of small inconveniences, discomforts, 
annoyances, depressions, and despondencies. 
Even in modern warfare itself, in the case of the 
vast majority of those who are either directly or 
indirectly engaged, it is doubtful whether it is 
not this virtue, under exceptionally exciting con- 
ditions, that is mainly called for. 

The merit of Nietzsche's message — and it has 
many merits when interpreted intelligently — is 
that he urged his unpromising nation to treat 
daily affairs as opportunity for heroic effort. 
This is the meaning of the sometimes mis- 
interpreted passage quoted in its context 
before, in Chapter VI : — 



THE OUTCOME 139 

" Live dangerously. Build your cities on 
Vesuvius. Launch your ships on uncharted 
seas. Live at war with your equals and with 
yourselves ! " 

So also G. B. S. set forth dramatically, in 
Major Barbara, a proposition which it is not 
unfair to consider as responsibly intended :-— 

" Nothing is ever done in this world until 
men are prepared to kill one another if it is not 
done." 

And again, in the same play : — 

" When you vote, you only change the names 
of the Cabinet. When you shoot, you pull down 
Governments, inaugurate new epochs, abolish 
old orders and set up new." 

Well, we have been " shooting " now. Surely 
we may hope that we may have had circum- 
stances enough, or shall have had by the time 
the war is finished, to call out our faculties, 
not momentarily but permanently, and to estab- 
lish ordinary life on a higher level than before. 
That is a special feature in the training of the 
Boy Scout, that he is to seek opportunities of 
kindly service in the daily round ; — so it must 
be part of the education of the ordinary citizen 
to recognize an opportunity for service in the 
life of honourable industry, in the life of 
creation rather than in the life of destruc- 
tion, in the arts of peace rather than in the arts 
of war. 

" There is truer duty to be done in raising 
harvests than in burning them, more in build- 
ing houses than in shelling them, more duty in 
honest and unselfish living than in honest and 
unselfish dying. To be heroic in danger is 
little. To be heroic in change and sway of 
fortune is little. To be patient in the great 
chasm and pause of loss is little. But to be 



140 THE FUTURE 

heroic in happiness ; to bear yourself gravely 
and righteously in the dazzling of the sunshine 
of morning ; not to forget the God in whom 
you trust when He gives you most ; not to fail 
those who trust you when they seem to need 
you least — this is the difficult fortitude. . . . 
All the duties of her children to England may 
be summed up in two words — industry and 
honour " (Ruskin, The Crown of Wild Olive). 

But we must keep our leaders up to the 
mark : we must make them use all their abili- 
ties for the good of the Nation ; we must call 
them away from the game of Party Politics, 
from a consideration of party gains and per- 
sonal careers ; or rather we must show them 
that their careers will be ruined by persistence 
in any such trivialities. We have been counted 
among the champions of Christendom ; we have 
stood up for Christ against Belial. The cause 
of the Nation is now the cause of Christ. 
Politics is no longer a game, but a serious 
matter. We have been face to face with the 
powers of evil • the powers of good have been 
on our side. We must be faithful to the highest 
that we know ; the Nation must raise the 
standard of the greatest Revelation in human 
history. While as to the Christian Churches, — 
they must admit their essential unity, they must 
try to regard their differences as they would 
be regarded from a higher standpoint ; 
religious denominations must cease from 
squabbling, on pain of losing their hold on 
the Community. The cry of the religious 
teacher, in essence if not in words, must be 
"Back to Christ." 

We shall have learnt that death and sacrifice 
for the good of humanity is not too high a 
demand, even on the most ordinary of the sons 



THE OUTCOME 141 

of men ; while as to the higher, the mountain 
peaks of the race, — the atmosphere is tremulous 
with the wave of sympathy, which is passing 
through it, and death is but the prelude to 
immortal victory. 

Unto each man his handiwork, unto each his crown, 

The just fate gives ; 
Whoso takes the world's life on him and his own lays down, 

He, dying so, lives. 

Whoso bears the whole heaviness of the wrong'd world's weight 

And puts it by, 
It is well with him suffering, though he face man's fate ; 

How should he die ? 

Seeing death has no part in him any more, no power 

Upon his head ; 
He has bought his eternity with a little hour, 

And is not dead. 

For an hour if ye look for him, he is no more found, 

For one hour's space ; 
Then ye lift up your eyes to him and behold him crowned, 

A deathless face. 

On the mountains of memory, by the world's well-springs, 

In all men's eyes, 
Where the light of the life of him is on all past things, 

Death only dies. 



CHAPTER XIX 

ON THE DULNESS OF WAR, AND 
ITS CIVILIAN ASPECT, AND ON 
EFFECTIVE NEUTRALITY 

THE demonstration of the uninteresting 
and monotonous character of modern 
civilized warfare is a feature of special 
value. War is now a dull and dirty business, 
and the accessories of its organization are much 
more closely related to the discipline associated 
with convict labour than ever before. 

The state and panoply of war is a thing of 
the past. Parade finery has become an ana- 
chronism. It used to have a meaning when 
people actually went into war in fine clothes ; 
but now that they are all discarded before 
business begins, they have become a sham and 
a pretence, like bad architecture, which pre- 
tends to be stone whereas it is really iron, the 
sham arch being supported by a girder. Real 
fighting clothes are not conspicuous but work- 
manlike. Armies do not advance with banners 
flying and trumpets blowing, but in loose open 
order, each individual looking after himself, 
and taking shelter or digging himself into the 
mud as soon as possible. Tools are therefore 
quite as important as arms ; and miners with 
safety breathing appliances may prove them- 
selves the fittest to survive. 

142 



DULNESS OF WAR 143 

It is much the same in marine warfare. 
To conduct sneaking undersea attacks on fish- 
ing boats or trading vessels is no occupation 
for a gentleman ; and the deteriorating effect 
of this kind of work on German sailors has 
become conspicuous. It is dishonouring to a 
noble profession. 

Every war has its own lessons, and training 
based on past experience gets rapidly out of 
date. Initiation and originality are more neces- 
sary than mechanical obedience. Changes are 
very rapid, and excessive practical instruction 
in extinct methods may be positively harmful. 

Moreover war has become to a great extent 
a matter of civil organization : traffic and 
supplies and railways, engineering and scientific 
applications and medical resources ; all which 
things can be studied and encouraged and 
developed in times of peace, only a slight dislo- 
cation and extension being needed to make 
them available in times of war. In medicine 
and surgery this seems fully recognized. It 
might be more recognized in engineering and 
many other subjects. 

Far less than before is war an exclusive 
and self-contained subject. A few leaders and 
officers who make it a profession there must 
always be ; but the bulk of the combatants 
should be engaged in civil occupations, and 
a moderate amount of parade drill should be 
sufficient. Open order advance must depend 
a good deal on individual prowess, and training 
for it must be more akin to scout work than 
to parade drill. Older methods have to be 
partially unlearned in modern war • it is full 
of emergency, and occasional breaches of regu- 
lation-tightness may be justified by success. 

The system of keeping soldiers nearly idle 



144 THE FUTURE 

during peace, and too superior to do civil work 
efficiently, must be out of date. Trench work 
is dirty and muddy, and there is no reason why 
the men should not engage in similar work 
in peace time. In the old days at the South 
Kensington Museum, if a bucket was wanted, 
two men and a corporal were sent to fetch it ; 
the two men brought the bucket between them, 
the corporal marching with them. This sort 
of thing is nonsense, and is akin to the 
" goose step " — a characteristic though ridi- 
culous Prussian attitude. 

It is right that war should disturb industrial 
organization, and that warriors should freely 
utilize the skill of civilians, who willingly 
help if called in and given the opportunity : 
it is not right that a whole class of the com- 
munity be kept for war purposes alone. War 
is only tolerable if made a dire national neces- 
sity, so that it will never be entered upon 
lightly or for the sake of a career ; it ought 
to interrupt careers, and be only undertaken 
when it is forced upon us from outside, — as 
in the present instance. 

We have learnt that against certain foes 
peaceful civilians enjoy no immunity in case of 
invasion. Hence they must be able to resist. 
For that purpose, and that purpose only, they 
must all be armed and trained, — at least wher- 
ever invasion is a possibility. 

But apart from the actual danger which 
civilians now run, of overbearing and atrocious 
insult, universal body -training for service 
should be the rule ; not what is now known 
as military training — or not much of that ; 
— but plenty of something more like naval 
training — the training of the handy manj 
training for usefulness of all sorts, analogous 



CIVILIAN ASPECT OF WAR 145 

to that of Boy Scouts ; together with exercise 
for maintaining bodily fitness, for power of 
marching and carrying weights and endurance 
generally. Such discipline would be good 
for the nation, and would lessen the number 
of street loafers and corner -men, whose very 
aspect is a disgrace. 

To call upon every nation to maintain so 
large a body of troops as to be able to intervene 
effectively by armed force in case of need is 
too much, but there ought to be an international 
police to enforce the judgements of international 
law. Law without force at its back is futile. 
There must be penalties for crime, and they 
must be enforced. The armies of the future 
must be maintained not for national aggrandize- 
ment, but as an international police. And the 
more civic and industrial the normal occupations 
of the force can be, the better. Many humane 
duties can be found for them, — even for the 
few who have to be specifically professional, 
— just as they are found for the ordinary civic 
police of to-day. 

The army should be more like a police ; 
and the more international the purely military 
calls upon it can be made, the better ; — 
an international police for enforcing inter- 
national law, like the civil machinery we 
have for defence against burglars : the police 
being armed whenever burglars are armed, and 
provided with all the proper machinery. In 
mechanism and equipment nothing should be 
lacking * and every industrial organization 
should be pressed into the service. But it 
should be in full swing for ordinary industrial 
purposes at other times ; and the managing 
and directing powers of those who have 
acquired long expertness by practice should 



146 THE FUTURE 

be utilized in times of war. War should perturb 
the ordinary processes of trade ; it should be 
conducted by their means and at their expense. 
Business should not go on as usual. 

All neutral nations should consider it their 
duty to uphold international law, and must cease 
to consider themselves free to refrain from 
action in face of international crime. But only 
in face of actual crime should the international 
force be mobilized. The right of revolt and 
insurrection must be preserved. An army used 
to suppress freedom would be a curse. Like 
every weapon, many inventions, and nearly 
every scientific discovery, military force can 
be misused : its employment should be jealously 
guarded and limited to its proper purpose. It 
must certainly be no engine in the hands of 
any one class, nor of any one Government. It 
must not be used to suppress popular criticism 
and free speech. All this is or should be plati- 
tude : for if there is a danger in this direction 
we are better without the force. The right 
use of force is to sustain, not to repress, 
freedom, and to uphold the principles of inter- 
national law. 

Neutrality 

International law, people say, is confused 
and uncertain ; but unless neutral nations do 
their duty in suppressing international crime, it 
is likewise impotent. Irrespective of any deli- 
cate question of law, there have recently been 
manifest crimes committed against humanity. 
These demand punishment. If neutral nations 
take no notice, the offender glories in his im- 
munity and continues his diabolical practices. 
It is troublesome no doubt to pronounce a 
strong judgement, the lazy way is to sup- 



NEUTRALITY 147 

pose that there may be something to be 
said on both sides, and to steer a middle, 
neutral, smug, and passive course. In case 
of crime against the innocent, this pro- 
cedure is utterly unfair. It is stigmatized 
forcibly by Browning in The Ring and the 
Book. The balanced judgement of the lawyer — 
it was not then the Pope — in that poem is blas- 
phemy against truth and right. The fatal out- 
come of such inertia could be no worse if 
judgement were viciously and purposely given 
in favour of wrong. 

It may be said truly by some neutral nations 
that they are not called upon to fight. That 
may be so, but in that case they are so for- 
tunately situated that without sacrifice of blood 
and treasure, merely by supplying help in one 
direction and withholding it in another — sacri- 
ficing nothing but an evil opportunity for profit 
— they can while declining war take effective 
sides. There should not be a civilized state in 
the world now that countenances such acts as 
have been ordered by the ruthless policy of 
Germany. The powerful criminal should be 
banned and isolated by all the rest of humanity. 

Apart altogether from armed intervention, 
or from any participation in current disputes, 
the weapon of the boycott can be made very 
effective against a criminal nation ; and any 
ill-treatment of prisoners or helpless people left 
in the enemy's hands should be most severely 
dealt with. For this cold-blooded and dis- 
graceful sin there is no excuse, and there should 
be no forgiveness : it is an outrage on 
humanity . 

Of how great service America has been to 
us in this one respect — that of obtaining access 
to and reporting concerning our prisoners — it 



148 THE FUTURE 

is unnecessary to speak. It is an honourable 
service which as a matter of course it performs, 
but nevertheless we are grateful ; and the effort 
not altogether to lose the approbation of that 
great people has been a restraining influence on 
exalted criminals who have very nearly cast 
off all restraint. 

The cutting off of supplies and diverting the 
stream of commerce from a delinquent, is a 
kind of war, and a very effective kind, but it 
is war which does not seek to maim and shatter. 
It cannot be undertaken without pecuniary and 
commercial sacrifice, entry upon it is therefore 
highly honourable, and its sole object is to 
bring erring nations to their senses, to 
strengthen the principle of right and equity, 
and to uphold a righteous government of the 
world . 



CHAPTER XX 

SOCIAL UNREST 



J ACCUSE 




NLY in a country like Germany which has 
concentrated its soul on war -preparation' 
can a war be really efficiently conducted. 
The fact that modern war had become a scien- 
tific and industrial undertaking is there well 
understood ; and, partly in consequence of that 
perception, the industrial and scientific resources 
of that country have been developed to the 
utmost, and so organized that they can be 
diverted from peace to war purposes without 
delay or dislocation. The familiar inscription 
on railway trucks (6 horses or 40 men) and the 
personal bearing of railway officials, are out- 
ward and visible signs of this easy transition. 
On the other hand it is manifest that we 
are almost hopelessly far from such a concen- 
tration — even in time of dire need. War Office 
officials, without adequate training in mercantile 
affairs, continue to manage what should be 
managed by competent civilians ; and though 
they now conduct certain things, such as trans- 
port, in an admirable manner, under the orga- 
nizing genius at their head, other things are 
being seriously mismanaged. Scandals are 
arising about contracts ; and even nine months 



149 



150 THE FUTURE 

after the war broke out competent and speci- 
ally trained civilians anxious to help were not 
trusted and not encouraged. Meetings take 
place for organizing manufacturing firms on 
a war basis, but hardly anything is done. All 
this may, I hope, become ancient history at 
any moment : but, even so, valuable time has 
elapsed before it is set right. 

We have depended almost wholly on the 
strong and resolute character of the men at 
the front, and we have dawdled over the 
preparations which would back up their bravery 
and make it effective. 

Consider the civilian's position, and his 
irritating impotence in the face of what he 
knows is dire need. Great manufacturing firms 
are given rights and privileges for the good 
of the community ; and when the call comes 
upon them for special service, they could surely 
respond, not merely to definite red tape orders, 
but in an organizing capacity ; and they would 
be able to manage their business far better 
than when hampered by well-meaning but 
ignorant officialdom. Neither business nor 
finance can be efficiently worked by amateurs, 
any more than an inexperienced civilian can 
conduct a campaign. Civil activities must 
bend to military need, but the civil organiza- 
tion itself should be utilized, fully informed, 
and trusted. 

Treachery would be rare, and when dis- 
covered should be dealt with in prompt military 
manner. The vicious contractor is as 
dangerous as a full-blown traitor. He may 
exist but surely he is exceptional. Patriotism 
might easily be made the dominant note. 
Greed is a temptation which inefficient control 
only strengthens. Venality is not wholly ex- 



SOCIAL UNREST 151 

eluded, or some officials are much slandered. 
Secret commissions are spoken of in some 
countries, and there are scandalous rumours 
even about the supply of arms. 

But hideous evils like these need no denun- 
ciation. They skulk in darkness : the light of 
day would destroy them. There are people 
competent to drag them out ; and random 
accusations are worse than useless. Let us 
deal here only with those evils which are not 
universally felt to be evils, — with those remedi- 
able errors which are consistent with a feeling 
of righteousness and honour and duty. Mis- 
taken or ill-informed officialism is one : it has 
been obstructive in every war we have had, 
and it is only less obstructive now. Hitherto 
the patriotism of manufacturing firms has pre- 
vented active revolt, but the traditional methods 
of the War Office, in subjects which they do 
not understand, have been irritating beyond 
words. Let us hope that under the present 
regime the tradition will be broken. 

Merely as an illustration, and to avoid the 
danger and unfairness of discussing anything 
of quite recent date, take the case of shipment 
of horses to South Africa as a parable. Cattle 
had been shipped to or from Liverpool by 
experienced firms, as a daily routine, for years ; 
and suitably furnished boats were available ; 
but all those fittings had, at great delay, to be 
cleared out, and replaced by some War Office 
stereotyped pattern : which at sea broke down 
and lamed and killed the unfortunate animals. 
Industrial experience ignored instead of being 
utilized, and management undertaken by 
necessarily incompetent officials, — that is one 
of the things that hereafter must be mended. 

Then the workmen must be better instructed 



152 THE FUTURE 

about what is expected of them. Posters invite 
them to enlist, but other information should be 
given, and their services should be asked for in 
many other ways also. To have Trade Unions 
deciding on limitation of output, and artificially 
restricting the working of machinery because 
of some conditions to which they had grown 
half -accustomed in time of peace — an outcome 
of social strife and misunderstanding between 
employer and employed — to have such con- 
ditions extending into war time, so that men 
at the front are being slaughtered for want of 
the munitions which would do half the work 
for them — is utterly intolerable. It is treachery 
of the worst description. It cannot be meant as 
such : it must be due to defective imagination, 
the result of lack of education. Authoritative 
exposition and instruction is the remedy ; the 
poster method might be still more employed for 
the dissemination of trustworthy information. 

When the indignation of a people breaks 
out into rioting, the way to calm them is not 
by police suppression, but by information. If 
they are assured that the authorities are actu- 
ally dealing with certain abuses, they will not 
go to the trouble and danger of violence ; but 
if they are not so assured, they may feel it 
their righteous duty to show to those in 
authority that the country is in earnest, and that 
the population is behind them if they take 
strong measures. In a Democracy this is no 
small matter to be assured of. People in a 
higher class write to the Times, or speak on 
platforms, when they feel similarly moved ; but 
for the mass of people, to whom a brick is 
handier than a pen, what outlet for their feel- 
ings have they, beyond a protest emphasized 
by physical force? In its origin the out- 



SOCIAL UNREST 153 

break may be quite serious and conscientious ; 
but of course the danger is that a rough and 
irresponsible element, always lurking in the 
community, may utilize the opportunity for 
frolic, and may bring discredit on the movement 
by random destruction and looting. 

Adequate and prompt information would stop 
the beginnings of disturbance, provided the 
Government were able to say and to prove — 
what unfortunately they are often not able 
to show — that they are fully awake to the 
position and are taking prompt and effective 
measures. It is just because this is not only 
not known, but sometimes not the fact, that 
rioting is in a manner justified, and occasion- 
ally does assist to stimulate into activity those 
who might otherwise be asleep. 

The populace cannot be expected always to 
respond to stimulus just when desired, and to 
refrain from all undesired forms of activity, 
unless it is more frequently taken into confi- 
dence and informed clearly and sufficiently 
what is being done. 

There are indeed some measures taken by 
the enemy to which we in this country would 
hardly stoop. It is part of their efficiency not 
only to develop their own industries but to try 
to injure ours by a system of spies and of 
agents provocateurs. Bribes of more or less 
indirect kind can be given to employers, and 
the natural tendency of hard-worked and 
ignorant men to drink and idleness and slack- 
ness can readily be fostered by aliens in our 
midst ; free drinks can be provided at a cost 
not excessive considering the advantage of 
obstructing the production of munitions of war ; 
and our unsuspecting workers may fall into the 
trap. It is a loathsome and dirty kind of war, 



154 THE FUTURE 

but that to some minds seems to be an attrac- 
tion. And in so far as they are really en- 
deavouring to make war loathsome and filthy 
as well as horrible, — and in so far as they incite 
us to retaliatory measures altogether beneath 
our dignity, thereby lowering the moral cur- 
rency below that of savages, who do at least 
make war with open force — so far they may be 
stimulating an ultimately beneficent reaction, 
since the whole atmosphere of so-called war 
will become too disgusting for civilized nations 
any longer to be able to, endure it. 

What is past is past — though not beyond 
inquiry and punishment, — and we are looking 
to the future. In the future we want to get 
down to the root causes of an evil state of 
things. Something is very wrong with indus- 
trial conditions when workmen's organizations 
can deliberately withhold munitions and threaten 
strikes, not because of any immediate grievance, 
but to uphold certain rules and regulations 
which in past time they have made. 

But although the call for special and sus- 
tained effort is loud, there is no excuse for 
harassed employers or impatient officials to urge 
men to continuity of labour, for long periods 
together, beyond their strength. Such over- 
pressure defeats its own end, it makes for in- 
efficiency ; length of hours does not mean 
greater output. Skilled and thoughtful atten- 
tion is necessary to all these points, and to the 
physical and mental health of workpeople. 
Spurts of extra work are possible, but they must 
be short ; and if men are overstrained, their 
stamina or their nerves break down, so that 
when an extra call comes they cannot respond, 
and in sheer hopeless reaction may give way 
to the temptation of careless oblivion. 



SOCIAL UNREST 155 

Overwork on the part of men and animals 
is to be deprecated, — periods of rest are essen- 
tial, — but intermittent operation is no benefit 
to a machine ; — that is quite different from 
animate exertion — a machine is not overworked 
by continuity of service, rather the contrary. 
A watch is none the better for being allowed 
to run down. 

Mechanism should work continuously, in- 
cluding time for cleaning and repairs ; and 
the act of artificially keeping a machine idle 
at the present time, when it might be making 
munitions, is wickedness and treachery. 

In war an autocracy or dictatorship has a 
great advantage over a system of popular 
government, unless the populace is wise enough 
and well-informed enough to suspend its ordi- 
nary methods of restriction and revolt. The 
throes of war is no time to speak of social 
reform. In so far as that is attempted now, 
we are reaping the fruits of a bad past ; the 
gleaners are storing trouble for themselves 
and are hampering their cause in the future. 
They have a good cause, if only they would not 
be foolish now. Can they not suspend their 
rules and throw all their energies into the 
work, be the consequences what they may, when 
their brothers are being sacrificed by the 
thousand for want of their aid ? They are 
honoured in finding that their help is so 
urgently needed, and that they are competent to 
give it. To abstain is folly which can only 
be half-excused by ignorance or stupidity, and 
verges perilously near to crime. 

Most working-men feel this strongly, and are 
moved to indignation at the slur cast upon their 
class by the action or inaction of what can only 
be an obstinate few. It is the minority only 



156 THE FUTURE 

whom we accuse : but the others are so busy 
they have not time to put the case strongly 
enough themselves. It is in their behalf that 
we must speak. 

And in speaking we must recognize, in all 
fairness, the magnificent mass of labour and 
energy that is being thrown into the national 
work, not only now but always. The " working 
class " is an epithet of nobility, a title to dis- 
tinction. It is to that class, always active on 
sea and land, that the nation owes its comfort, 
its luxury, its sustenance, and its safety. Among 
the workers must be reckoned those who in 
normal times have a reasonable amount of 
leisure — as all should have — even though their 
work is not strictly hand work. And of what 
are ordinarily called the more leisured classes, 
many, as is well known, are at the front, sacri- 
ficing themselves with distinguished honour at 
the call of duty, and surpassing themselves in 
acts of heroism ; while many others are work- 
ing hard and doing all they can in various ways 
— ambulance and other. On the whole all 
classes, without distinction, have responded 
nobly, in accordance with the demand of their 
traditions and privileges. 

But there is a residuum of all classes — most 
disgraceful among the well-to-do — who respond 
not at all to the national need, who regard the 
whole position with selfish detachment, who 
block the railway line with their special trains, 
and who frankly think the war a bore because 
it interferes with their comfort and their sports. 
These are not worth appealing to : they are 
useless excrescences on society anyhow ; if they 
abstained from gambling they would be doing 
no good. Their possible usefulness is not worth 
considering. Let them alone ; they are already 
damned . 



SOCIAL UNREST 157 

But with the industrial classes the case is far 
otherwise, and it behoves us to ask very care- 
fully how is it that any reasonably patriotic 
British working-men do not feel the call of 
patriotism more intensely ? Those who join 
army or navy in time of war undoubtedly do 
feel the call ; but those who stay and work are 
just as necessary, and ought to feel that they can 
just as really and honourably serve their coun- 
try by work into which they put their utmost 
energies — not counting the cost, not seeking for 
extra profit or better conditions, and not allow- 
ing any kind of class feeling to rise to the sur- 
face, until the foe has been vanquished and 
peace restored. 

Hear Mr. Ruskin on the roots of honour ; he 
is worth a hearing : though he is then chiefly 
addressing employers. He is explaining that 
we honour a soldier because he is ready to die 
for his country ; and that every profession is 
honoured because of the sacrifice for which, 
under given circumstances, it successfully calls. 
He specifies the conditions under which a man 
will undergo suffering and loss — the due occa- 
sion on which he should be ready to die — rather 
than prove false to the trust reposed in him : — 

" The Soldier, rather than leave his post in 

battle. 
The Physician, rather than leave his post in 

plague. 
The Pastor, rather than teach Falsehood. 
The Lawyer rather than countenance Injustice. 
The Merchant — what is his due occasion of 

death? " 

May we not say — rather than not provide for 

his country the materials it grievously needs ? 

Shall Commerce and Trade be the only 



158 THE FUTURE 

dishonourable profession ? Nay, rather we 
shall find that " commerce is an occupation 
which gentlemen will every day see more need 
to engage in, rather than in the businesses of 
talking to men, or slaying them ; that, in true 
commerce, as in true preaching, or true fighting, 
it is necessary to admit the idea of occasional 
voluntary loss ; — that sixpences have to be lost, 
as well as lives, under a sense of duty ; that the 
market may have its martyrdoms as well as the 
pulpit ; and trade its heroisms, as well as war." 

This has begun to penetrate to some em- 
ployers of labour — it must penetrate to many 
more. It has hardly begun to penetrate to the 
workmen. Till it does, their occupation lacks 
the dignity which is essentially its due. 

Let us now leave railing accusations, and con- 
sider calmly what are the roots of the evil, if 
haply we may discover the source of them, and 
thus find a way to a remedy. 



CHAPTER XXI 

INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS 

IN considering the changes that should be 
made after the war, it is essential to remem- 
ber the ghastly conditions of life and death 
which we have idly acquiesced in ; hoping 
with a kind of grim hope that they were inevit- 
able, and that so not we were responsible but 
only the nature of things. The abominable 
false doctrine that humanity would always mul- 
tiply to the limits of subsistence has been 
responsible for much supineness and hopeless- 
ness in social reform. That doctrine has proved 
itself conspicuously untrue ; and surely the war 
has taught us that Society may be more effi- 
ciently organized, so as to attack a multitude 
of remediable evils. Enthusiasts hope that 
humanity can see its way to put down war for 
ever. That is probably beyond our power ; 
we cannot legislate for all eternity. But there 
are more important things which do lie within 
our power, and which are really more important 
than mere cessation of fighting. There are 
reforms at home waiting to be accomplished, 
and there are men able and willing to deal with 
them, if only the sinews for that wholesome kind 
of warfare were provided. — The expenditure not 
of a tithe, nor yet of a hundredth, but of a 
thousandth part of the cost of this war could in 

159 



160 THE FUTURE 

a few years lead to an extraordinary benefit to 
Society and might constitute a literal renewal 
of life. 

Needless infant mortality is responsible for 
as many frustrated lives as war. This one sen- 
tence touches a topic of vital moment ! And 
survival is often mere existence — certainly not 
fulness of life. Life is just what we do not 
sufficiently attend to. Mr. Bernard Shaw is 
constantly preaching the value of life and the 
strength of the life -force, if we gave it a 
chance by removing manifest and fatal dis- 
abilities, and if we helped it with energy and 
enthusiasm such as we are ready to bestow with- 
out hesitation upon war. This is what he has 
recently said : — 

" Mr. Sidney Webb offers to put an end to 
British unemployment and destitution, with their 
infinite loss and demoralization, for a paltry 
couple of million pounds. Sir Horace Plunkett 
offers to quadruple the produce of the Irish soil, 
and thereby avert the land and labour war that 
is hanging over Ireland, at a cost of £5,000 a 
year for technical education in agriculture. 
They might as well ask for the sun and stars. 
No mother sends her son to live for England. 
No father shakes his son's hand and says ' I 
wish I were young enough to stand beside you 
in the fight for a decent country to live in.' " 

Now that we have learnt the power of 
organization, and the vast importance of scien- 
tific education to civilized man, we surely can- 
not be content to continue the old discredited 
methods of government by officials and 
amateurs, and stint all really enlightened enter- 
prises by the prosaic and debilitating handicap 
of scarcity of funds. The impecuniosity of 
practically all genuinely educational and scien- 



INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS 161 

tific institutions is a national disgrace as well 
as folly. 

As the President of the Stanford University 
in America has lately said : — 

" We spend now some $290,000,000 a year 
on ' preparedness for war/ of course without 
getting it, though coming once or twice dan- 
gerously near it. Let us in addition spend 
one per cent, of this amount on prepared- 
ness for peace. It is an experiment worth 
trying." 

The value of human existence, as it might be 
developed if we rose to the height of our oppor- 
tunities, is well expressed by Mr. Lowes Dickin- 
son : — 

" There can be no peace, not even a genuine 
desire for peace, until men realize that the 
greatness of a people is to be measured by the 
quality of life of the individual citizens. A 
city like Athens or Florence is worth all the 
Empires that have ever been. The nobility of 
a people lies not in its capacity for war, but in 
its capacity for peace. It is, indeed, only 
because the nations are incapable of the one that 
they plunge so readily into the other. The task 
of peace is to create Life, as the task of war is to 
destroy it ; to organize labour so that it shall 
not incapacitate men for leisure ; to establish 
justice as a foundation for personality ; to un- 
fold in men the capacity for noble joy and pro- 
found sorrow ; to liberate them for the passion 
of love, the perception of beauty, the contempla- 
tion of truth." 

And again, speaking of humanity generally, 
" If men had given to the creation of life a 
tithe of the devotion they have offered again 
and again to its destruction, they would have 
made of this world so glorious a place that 

M 



162 THE FUTURE 

they would not need to take refuge from it in 
the shambles. It is our false ideals that make 
for war. And it is the feebleness of our in- 
telligence and the pettiness of our passions that 
permit such ideals to master us. We seek col- 
lective power because we are incapable of 
individual greatness. We seek extension of 
territory because we cannot utilize the territory 
we have. We seek to be many, because none 
of us is able to be properly one." 

But though a democracy is often afflicted 
with a spirit of unwise and disproportionate 
economy, neither idealism nor ambition can 
be reckoned among its weaknesses. It can 
be drilled for war, but the difficulty of 
organizing it for the arts of peace is partly 
due to its not understanding the worthiness of 
the object — having naturally small perception 
of the beauty of life, — and partly to its dis- 
inclination to submit to authority even of its 
own choosing, preferring to be swayed rather 
by the passion of the moment than by wise and 
considered judgement. Yet "when a man 
chooses for himself the part that he will take in 
the national organization, the more incumbent 
on him is it to fulfil that part to the utmost ; 
where he has a voice in the selection of those 
who represent supreme authority, it is all the 
more incumbent on him to obey loyally." That 
is where our enemy has an advantage. For 
in a military autocracy, the danger of anarchic 
individualism is far less real ; the people are 
readier, as it were by instinct, to do what 
they are told, and are not accustomed to think 
for themselves. " But Liberty has its price, 
like all else that is worth the having ; and 
that price is greater risk to the State and greater 
responsibility to the individual." 



INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS 163 

That truth is just why the attitude of some 
of the intelligent artisans in this country is 
specially perturbing and disappointing; the 
supine and apparently selfish attitude of some 
of them is deserving pi scrutiny To what 
is it due ? The facile slander is to attribute it 
to drink; and drink is not without its influ- 
ence. Alcohol is perhaps supplied freely by 
interested enemies, and the temptation may 
often be succumbed to. But the attitude of 
some good workers to the country's needs is 
susceptible of deeper explanation than that. It 
is not, and it cannot be, lack of patriotism ; the 
very same sort of men volunteer for deadly 
service at the front. Whenever they can feel 
that they are serving the Nation and not the 
Capitalist they are heroic ; the blighting sus- 
picion which curbs their effort is as to who 
reaps the benefit of all their labour. And 
this is not a momentary impulse or trivial ques- 
tion : it has grown up during all the centuries 
of factory labour and dividend -earning Com- 
panies. Labour is a floating commodity, easily 
accessible, and enterprises are started on the 
certainty that the necessary labour can be got 
for the asking, and can be discarded and 
changed at will. The real grievance of labour 
is the absence of interest in work — the long 
hours of monotonous soulless toil. 

The words of Coleridge, in The Friend, 
express for us this part of the social problem : 
'■* Those institutions of society which should 
condemn me to the necessity of twelve hours' 
daily toil, would make my soul a slave, and 
sink the rational being in the mere animal. It 
is a mockery of our fellow -creatures' wrongs 
to call them equal in rights, when, by the bitter 
compulsion of their wants, we make them in- 



164 THE FUTURE 

ferior to us in all that can soften the heart or 
dignify the understanding." 

And a writer in a recent Hibbert Journal 
(April 1 9 1 5 ) says : — 

" In any great industrial city one looks at the 
people, at their dwindled, indefinite types, their 
deadening work, their play, which for the most 
part they perform by proxy ; and, after humbly 
acknowledging certain virtues in them which 
such a life would certainly kill in oneself, one 
is still tempted to cry, ' But nothing, nothing, 
can ever make this a vital, creative, and there- 
fore whole and happy race again ! ' " 

That is a hard saying, but the conditions 
must be held responsible for whatever industrial 
apathy there is. 

" I am not unpatriotic," said a workman 
when remonstrated with. " I had two sons at 
the front, one of them is killed. I am willing 
to serve the Country ; but I will not slave over- 
time, and seven days a week, to increase the 
profits of a blasted blood -sucking board of 
Directors. 1 will work the hours 1 choose (he 
might go on) and for as long as is necessary 
to get me the pay I need for a week. More 
I don't need, and I want to live a human life 
and not the life of a slave. Show me work that 
has any interest and excitement and a spice of 
danger, and I'm on ; but to tend a machine 
day after day from my youth up, — I'm about 
sick of it ; and if they want it done for fifteen 
hours a day they can get another machine to 
do it — not me." 

How can the modern craftsman have joy in 
his work, — work without thought or originality 
or initiative, or anything but a long familiar 
mechanical skill ? It can be tolerated for a few 
hours a day, since that is the way in which he 



INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS 165 

draws from the capitalist a living wage, but 
as for the work itself the workman sometimes 
feels that it may go to hell and the capitalist 
with it. 

"What's all the work for?" he sometimes 
asks. " I don't know who wants the things. 
They're not produced because they're wanted, 
but because there's a profit on each ; and if a 
million are turned out in a year, then the profit 
is a large one. I'm one of the hands that makes 
the profit for some one, and I'm tired of it. 

" Slums tempered by beershops, that's where 
we live, and we're taken on and shoved off just 
as may suit the manager. If the country needs 
my services, let it take them direct, let me 
have something to live for, something to work 
for, let me realize what I'm doing and be 
allowed to put some thought into it. Then I'll 
put my back into it too." 

An anonymous writer in The New Statesman 
describes the average workman's position thus : 
we may not approve or relish the description, 
but we may at least bethink ourselves how far, 
allowing for some exaggeration, it is true : — 

"Consider the working-man's position. He 
has no security in his work beyond the week — 
frequently not beyond the day. He lives at 
the whim of the employing classes. He lives 
as it were at a week's notice. He sees his 
children growing up about him, and he knows 
that an accident may happen to him, any day, 
as the result of which they will be left to the 
harsh charity of the parish. He sees them 
growing up with the gutter for their only 
garden, and he speculates on the future of 
all that brightness and laughter, and its in- 
secure tenure even of the gutter. He sees 
them doomed to live almost for certain in the 



166 THE FUTURE 

same flowerless monotony in which he himself 
has always lived. When they come into the 
house, he is like a man fighting for air. They, 
are all fighting for air. They are overcrowded ; 
they cannot get away from each other ; they 
get on each other's nerves. Hence the occa- 
sional furies of mean streets, the outbreaks of 
violence and drunkenness. He attempts to 
bring some of the beauty of the world into 
his home : he has a caged bird, a cat, a pot of 
geraniums. He has one or two meanly showy, 
glass ornaments on the mantelpiece ; but his 
house is almost always ugly. He is dumped, 
as it were, into a brickfield : he has no in- 
heritance in the teeming earth. Wherever he 
goes it is the same. He is herded into cheap 
galleries in the theatres : he is pushed into 
separate bars in the public -houses. He is a 
person cut off, put in his place. He is an 
outsider, and his children are outsiders, in a 
world of motor-cars and rich dresses and 
gardens. . . . And yet, paradoxically enough, 
he is cheerful rather than bitter^ and he faces 
death for his country in great battles with 
music-hall jokes on his lips." 

Yes, they are fine at the front, where their 
importance is obvious ; nor are those of the 
more privileged class any less fine, there. But 
at home we have got into a rut of bad condi- 
tions, and so into an apparent lack of patriotism, 
for which the blame may have to be evenly 
distributed. The writer quoted above sees 
faults in employers, and objects to the workmen 
being regarded as " the bad boys of the family, 
whom it is always safe to blame. Whenever 
any dispute arises between them and their 
employers, they are almost invariably regarded 
as the aggressors. The employer who insists 1 



INDUSTKIAL CONDITIONS 167 

that war shall be the occasion of lower real 
wages and larger profits, is looked on as a 
sensible business man. The worker who 
demands that during war-time his children's 
stomachs shall be filled at least as usual, is 
browbeaten as a fellow who is disturbing the 
national unity and interfering with the supply 
of necessary things to his brothers in the 
trenches. The employer who strikes against 
giving his men an honest wage is never painted 
in half so dark colours. And yet it is his 
refusal to payj a fair wage which has again and 
again in recent months held up the work of the 
war." 

The evil, whatever it is — the root of the so- 
called conflict between Capital and Labour — is 
not that of one nation, but of civilized humanity. 
What then is the remedy ? 

One remedy is militarism. Let the worker 
be dragooned and disciplined into habitual 
obedience till he becomes docile, asks no ques- 
tions, and does not cultivate a soul ; then he 
will be useful to trie State. And the Capitalist 
class — let them be disciplined and docile too. 
The State will then be supreme ; and pro- 
vided other nations live a slacker kind of exist- 
ence, it will acquire a world -dominance arid be 
able to impose its will upon them all ; — that 
is the ideal condition from the German point of 
view. What an ideal ! 

" It may, however, be said — in view of our 
present industrial conditions, arid the low 
standard of physical health and vitality pre- 
vailing among the young folk of our large 
towns — that physical drill and scout training, 
including ambulance and other work and 
qualification in some useful trade, might very 
well be made a part of our general educational 



168 THE FUTURE 

system, for rich and poor alike, say between 
the ages of sixteen and eighteen. Such a 
training would to each individual boy be im- 
mensely valuable, and by providing some rudi- 
mentary understanding of military affairs and 
the duties of public service and citizenship 
would enable him to choose how he could 
be helpful to the nation, — provided always he 
were not forced to make his choice in a direc- 
tion distasteful or repugnant to him. In any 
good cause, as in a war of defence against 
a foreign enemy, it is obvious enough that 
there would then be plenty of native enthusiasm 
forthcoming without legal or official pressure." 
So says Edward Carpenter. 

Something of this sort has now in emergency 
been organized at Liverpool by the admirable 
efforts of Lord Derby, and unloaders of ships 
have been made to feel the real usefulness of 
their labour by being put into khaki. 

" For years attention has been called to the 
peculiarly unsatisfactory and demoralizing posi- 
tion of the casual dock labourer. Now at one 
blow he is to be given the status, the pay, and 
the security of a public servant. The form 
of organization is obviously exceptional and 
temporary, devised to meet exceptional and 
temporary circumstances, but if the experiment 
is successful it will have proved that organiza- 
tion is possible, and that the great problem 
of casual labour, the most fertile perhaps of all 
sources of poverty and social degradation, is 
quite capable of solution." 

How far from a happy condition of things 
we have been, in normal times, the writings of 
socialists and the songs of our poets make 
manifest. The mean streets and sordid sur- 
roundings amid which masses dwell — in spring- 



INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS 169 

time and harvest and all the year round, in this 
age of large cities and mercantile prosperity — 
these evil conditions, so alien to the merry 
England and smiling countryside of our less 
prosperous days, are having their due effect, 
and leave visible traces on both the body and 
the soul of the modern craftsman. William 
Morris's lyric which records the " Message of 
the March Wind " is not the less exquisite a 
poem because it is a trenchant, even a practical 
" criticism of life " : 

Hark ! the March wind again of a people is telling 
Of the life that they live there, so haggard and grim, 

That if we and our love amidst them had been dwelling 
My fondness had faltered, thy beauty grown dim. 

This land we have loved in our love and our leisure 
For them hangs in heaven, high out of their reach ; 

The wide hills o'er the sea-plain for them have no pleasure, 
The grey homes of their fathers no story to teach. 

The singers have sung and the builders- have builded, 
The painters have fashioned their tales of delight ; 

For what and for whom hath the world's book been gilded, 
When all is for these but the blackness of night ? 

How long, and for what is their patience abiding? 

How oft and how oft shall their story be told? 
While the hope that none seeketh in darkness is hiding, 

And in grief and in sorrow the world groweth old ? 



CHAPTER XXII 

SOCIAL REFORM 

GOD SAVE THE PEOPLE 

THE following extract shows the way in 
which enlightened manufacturers regard 
their relations to their workpeople : — 
" We must not forget that, fortunately, the 
wage-earners in this country are steadily be- 
coming better educated, and acquiring a more 
intelligent appreciation of the industrial system 
and of their place in it. They think with truth' 
that in the past they have not had a fair share 
either in wealth or leisure of the immense gain 
that has been made through the progress of 
science and invention. But this is not the only 
cause of the industrial unrest. They want — 
and surely this is a very legitimate demand ! — 
more control over their own lives. The 
problem of the future, which the capitalist 
classes have to meet, is in the first place a wider 
and more equitable distribution of wealth and 
leisure ; and in the second, to devise some 
method by which the workers can have some 
share in the control of the industry in which' 
they are engaged " (Edward Cadbury on 
" Scientific Management in Industry"). 

The first step towards reform— dissatisfaction 
with present conditions — has probably been 
already taken ; the second step, which will be 

170 



SOCIAL REFORM 171 

taken as soon as wage-earners get better 
educated, is to begin to look forward and make 
provision for the future and acquire a stake in 
the country and an outlook much wider than 
any they possess at present. Since they con-< 
stitute the majority of the human race, this 
is surely a good thing and one worthy of en- 
couragement from every humane point of view; 

Consider therefore the causes which on the 
whole at present tend to keep masses of 
humanity down at a lower level than they 
need occupy. 

One, and I believe rather a potent one, is 
their hand-to-mouth thriftless style of living : 
a possible cause, and at the same time a certain 
consequence, of the floating labour market and 
the system of the weekly wage. 

Thrift 

The precariousness and insecurity of tenure 
associated with the weekly-wage system, and 
the habit, so difficult to eradicate, of spending 
each week's earnings before the next is 
received, are destructive of foresight, thrift, 
and responsibility, in all except the strongest 
characters. The system is bound to induce 
happy-go-lucky irresponsible light-heartedness, 
which, though in itself not without merit in 
times of health and prosperity, affords very 
little foot -hold and is no sort of stand-by in 
times of sickness, unemployment, or distress. 
That such a system can retain its hold on 
workers, when they have had experience of 
the fluctuation of trade and the uncertainties of 
employment, is very remarkable ; and until it 
can be changed so that the working classes 
exercise some sort of forethought and prudential 



172 THE FUTURE 

care — such as is characteristic of the classes 
immediately above them — so long they will be 
liable to periods of acute distress, and will 
be more or less at the mercy of the exceptiona 
self-seeking Capitalist. 

It is true that they possess the weapon of the 
Strike, but it is a weapon very injurious to th( 
Nation and very sharp -edged in the handle tc 
•those who use it ; in fact it is a weapon without 
a handle, and cannot be clutched without pair 
-and injury. Moreover readiness for warfare 
is no substitute for provident arrangements 
whereby they could set aside sufficient to tide 
them over difficult periods. 

Since the ultimate object of all industry can 
«only be a richer and fuller human life — though 
that is too infrequently remembered, — and since 
self-respect or personal dignity is a contributory 
asset to such a life, it follows that whatever the 
State can do to encourage thrift should be done. 

There would be no harm in receiving pay- 
ment week by week, if it were not necessarily 
spent week by week, and if an amount were 
always stored so as to secure the necessary 
independence. The practical difficulty of saving 
small sums is however not insignificant. To 
put money into any Benefit or Building Society 
which becomes insolvent, is not only ruinous 
to a few individuals, but is discouraging to any 
nascent spirit of saving in the Nation. Failures 
of that kind, which at one time were too fre- 
quent, must be held responsible for a great 
deal of evil. And though supervision and 
better management have put such Societies on 
a much sounder basis, the benefits they confer, 
and the freedom of their members, are limited. 
They do not fully, though they do partially, 
supply the need of an easily managed banking 



SOCIAL REFORM 17& 

account. Cash in the pocket involves tempta- 
tions greatly in excess of cash at the Bank - y 
but what bank is there that will take workmen's 
savings ? There used to be the Provincial 
Savings Bank, with Government security and 
three per cent interest ; every complete thirty- 
three shillings deposited earning an interest 
of a penny a month. In my youth I was one of 
the Trustees of such a Savings Bank at Hanley. 
It was open only for a few hours twice a week, 
Saturday afternoon and Monday evening ; and 
the Trustees used to attend in rotation, along 
with a paid official, either to receive the sums 
brought by small depositors on Saturday or 
to pay them out as well as receive on Monday. 
I remember the inconvenience and delay to 
which those who came (mostly women) were 
subjected. They received tickets from a porter 
as they entered, giving them their place on 
a bench, where they sat after the manner of a 
queue until their turn came for admission into 
the counting-house, whence, after transacting 
their business, they went away through another 
door. It was slow and tedious work, and the 
patience with which they put up with it im- 
pressed me, especially when (as sometimes hap- 
pened) either the paid official or the trustee 
happened to be late. But what impressed me 
also was the small maximum of deposit 
allowed ; for more than once I heard a man 
told that he must take the money out, or that 
no more could be received, as it had reached 
the maximum. They used sometimes to ask 
in despair where they were to put it, but on that 
question it was a responsible matter to offer 
sound advice. 

Nowadays the Post Office Savings Bank 
system no doubt diminishes a great many of 



174 THE FUTURE 

the mere inconveniences ; but still the total that 
can thus be saved is strictly limited to £200 ; 
with a maximum of fifty pounds deposit in 
any one year. I suppose that the restriction 
is insisted on in order to avoid competition with 
ordinary banks ; but surely those have plenty 
to do in connection with large affairs. The 
retention of small savings with absolute security 
is so vital to the interests of the Country that I 
cannot but feel that the maximum ought to 
be abolished, and every other encouragement 
given to easy saving by the people — not for 
sickness only, as by a scheme of insurance ; 
still less by any compulsory method ; but as 
a part of the education of the Country towards 
foresight and towards civic and family responsi- 
bility. 1 It seems to me that a change of habit 
of that kind would do more to diminish the 
drink evil, and other kinds of extravagance, 
than any more direct and prohibitive measure. 
It is always indirect methods that are the most 
efficacious ; not mere mechanical negative pro- 
hibition, but real positive strengthening of 
character and improvement of the outlook on 
life. 

And while thus incidentally touching on the 
drink question, — surely indirect methods are the 
best mode of dealing with that. Temperance 
by forcible suppression is worth very little 
compared with temperance in the interests of 
frugality and self-respect. Once cultivate a 
sense of human dignity, — and drunkenness 
becomes impossible. 

1 The recent opening of an unlimited Fund with perfect security, 
to small investors, is therefore an event of the utmost significance ; 
and if the War Loan be continued, in principle, into peace 
time, it will have a vast influence on the true prosperity of 
the country. 



SOCIAL REFORM 175 

But if this is too long a process — though 1 with 
national education it need not be so long under 
a rational social system, — then there are other 
indirect methods which may be employed. As 
to their merits I am incompetent to judge ; but 
I quote here the advice of Mr. Robert Blatch- 
ford, who on such a matter must be well worth 
listening to : — 

" The remedy for all these evils is State 
control of the drink traffic. All distilleries and 
breweries should be Government concerns. All 
1 places within the meaning of the Act ' should 
be State owned. The drink quick and drink 
often, ugly, vulgar, or blatant ' inns,' ' hotels,' 
' pubs,' and gin-palaces, should be abolished, 
and good hotels and cafes should be opened 
in their place. If that were done there would 
be no need for prohibition." 

We may well agree with Milton when he 
says : — 

" ' And were I the chooser, a dram of well- 
doing should be preferred before many times 
as much forcible hindrance of evil doing. For 
God sure esteems the growth and completing 
of one virtuous person more than the restraint 
of ten vicious.' A ' 

Oh if only we had wisdom enough' to take 
hold of social evils at their roots, and not be 
merely trying to lop off their excrescences and 
prune them into some sort of conformity ! It 
is not militarism alone that we are now engaged 
in righting. 

" We really are fighting all together for a 
new and better state of existence. And we 
may surely hope — even those who have but 
small confidence — that some of its results appear 
already. In nearly all countries engaged in 
the war we see a process of regeneration going 



176 THE FUTURE 

on. . . . Russia has renounced drink, is 
acquiring initiative, conquering that national 
apathy which, more than anything else, barred 
her on the road towards progress and freedom. 
France is pulling herself together, reintegrating, 
regaining self-control. Germany is completing 
her fusion into unity, breaking up from within 
those demarcations of caste and calling which 
have handicapped so much her free evolution, 
and learning in the school of sacrifice to distin- 
guish between true and false ideals." So says 
Count Hermann Keyserling, in the Hlbbert 
Journal, and we may at all events hope that 
he is right. 

And what is England doing ? It must be 
preparing to do something in the way of 
national reform. As yet it has not begun. 
We are a long way from the idea that daily 
work may be a joy ; like that felt by William 
Morris, — 

To-morrow's uprising to deeds shall be sweet. 

We are not yet up to the standard of past 
centuries in recognizing and upholding the 
pleasure and dignity of labour. 

" Think what this meant to the worker : 
think what it meant to him when his work 
exercised and developed, not his manual skill 
only, but his best faculties — intellectual, imagi- 
native, inventive. I have heard people wonder 
why England in those days was called Merrie 
England ? It was because the labour of the 
nation — which after all is the nation's chief 
concern and most absorbing occupation — was 
itself a source of pleasure and of pride." « 

There was a time — the time of the Guilds 

1 Mr. Lisle March- Phillips, in a paper read before the Peasant 
Art Fellowship. 



SOCIAL REFORM 177 

of industry — when the worker took joy in his 
work, when he had initiative, and could con- 
struct things of beauty. This was the era of 
the Gothic cathedrals. Work was done then 
that was worth living for. 

It has become a very serious question, 
whether England possesses a soul now as it did 
in the past. Industrialism has sadly inter- 
fered with Art, and the modern method of 
putting out a contract to the lowest tender 
is not likely to result in the building of 
cathedrals, or any other object of beauty. 

The lack of joy in work is deprecated even 
by those who rejoice in the Forth Bridge kind 
of structure that we do make and make well ; 
so it is in no way surprising that persons of 
taste and culture should lament the deca- 
dence of works of art, and the fall in the 
status and conditions of labour, since, let us 
say, the twelfth century, when individual 
resource and prowess had more scope, and when 
handicraft had a soul. 

A writer in the Hlbbert Journal for April 
191 5 says,— 

" Wiser generations, yet unborn, will surely 
look back with wonder upon the ugly experi- 
ment of mechanical industrialism. From the 
very first it was patent that the freedom it 
promised hung chains about the many ; and 
yet it was quickly accepted and riveted upon 
the world's comparatively free life, with almost 
universal approval. To dub it * progress ' was 
sufficient to secure a submission fatal as that 
we criticize in the Germans to-day : the sub- 
mission of the romantic, peasant -rilled, kindly 
Germany of the ancient towns and the fairy - 
haunted Christmas-tree forests, to the prosaic 
power and plans of Prussia ! " 



178 THE FUTUKE 

Germany has gone farther in this decadence 
than we have, has gone farther and fared worse. 
It is not content with being, like ourselves, 
comparatively unable to produce, — it rejoices in 
having the power actively to destroy. 

But unless these works are renewed, time wil 
destroy them, only more slowly. And that we 
are powerless to prevent ; for under presen 
conditions we cannot renew them, we can only 
deceptively restore. 

"It is probably true that we should no 
bring up big guns against Gothic cathedrals 
but we are not wholly clean of such crimes, 
for all that. As complacent units in modern 
industrial civilization we are all bearing a hand 
in the black miracle — the exact antithesis to 
the Christian making and mending miracle — 
the black miracle of undoing. Krupp guns 
may destroy the glory of Rheims Cathedral 
in a few days : the destructive method for 
which we are partly responsible is slower but 
surer. Our modern civilization, built up on 
mechanical industrialism (or, it were truer to i 
say, imprisoned within it, ensnared at every 
turn in its barbed wire entanglements), has 
been, throughout its whole devastating era, 
whittling away or corrupting those very powers 
in the race which made a Rheims Cathedral 
possible. 

*•' There can be no doubt — its very nature 
and origin prove it — that Gothic art was a 
source of joy to the population of the country 
and a potent influence beautifying and en- 
nobling the life of the whole nation." 

In those days it appears that the organizing 
Architect was himself a craftsman : — 

" All members of all handicrafts, of whatever 
kind, were united in brotherhoods, and these 



SOCIAL REFORM 179 

brotherhoods were the depositaries of all know- 
ledge in regard to that craft, and the only 
authorities on the right methods of work. 
There was no outside dictation. Labour, 
skilled and disciplined and organized, found 
out the best way of doing things, and did 
them. . . . 

" There is something extraordinarily im- 
posing in these mediaeval brotherhoods of work- 
men, in the wisdom and sagacity of their laws, 
in their firmness and moderation, in the proud 
independence of their attitude. n 

Let us hope that something of this kind 
will emerge from the ashes of this shocking 
contest, and that a brotherhood feeling may 
once again rise among all the workers and 
contributors to noble works of Art. It may 
now, with greater facilities of intercourse, easily 
become an international feeling, and may 
include the workers even of the enemy ; for 
among us — save when exasperated by inhuman 
atrocities — fellow-feeling for. them has never 
really ceased. 

The party calling itself the Independent 
Labour Party has made serious mistakes in 
policy, its heart is stronger than its head, and 
its attitude in some respects has been deplor- 
able ; but it is eagerly anxious for the right, 
and although friendly feeling across the breach 
is hardly reciprocated at the present time, it is 
something to feel that on our side at least it 
is as vivid as ever. Apart from any mere 
party significance which may be foisted into 
it, a recent manifesto of this party may on this 
ground be welcomed ; — 

■" We hail our working-class comrades of 
every land. Across the roar of guns we send 
greeting to the German Socialists. They have 



180 THE FUTURE 

laboured unceasingly to promote good rela- 
tions with Britain, as we with Germany. They 
are no enemies of ours, but faithful friends. 
In forcing this appalling crime upon the 
nations, it is the rulers, the diplomats, the 
militarists, who have sealed their doom. In 
tears and blood and bitterness the greater 
Democracy will be born. With steadfast faith 
we greet the future ; our cause is holy and 
imperishable, and the labour of our hands has 
not been in vain." 

But who shall so forecast the years 
And find in loss a gain to match ? 
Or reach a hand thro' time to catch 

The far-off interest of tears ? 



CHAPTER XXIII 

TASK OF HUMANITY 

OME years ago it seemed to be thought 
that any one who considered the welfare 
of other nations as well as his own was no 
true patriot. Fortunately the present state of 
things must put an end to that selfish and 
shortsighted provincialism. Even a nation is 
not an end in itself ; and the wide area of 
the present calamity, and the number of nations 
which have been drawn into it, are a sign of 
the progress that has been already made 
towards union. Honourable behaviour of a 
national kind has also received a stimulus, if 
only from the utter disgust which conspicuous 
and flagrant dishonour has aroused. 

The intercourse between man and man, even 
in the competitive scheme known as business, 
is governed on the whole by considerations of 
personal honour ; though it is admittedly a 
little hard sometimes, especially for an inex- 
perienced novice in commerce, to know what 
will be considered honourable or otherwise. 
But though there may be a difficulty in draw- 
ing the line, and though it is in some places 
rather perilously elastic, there is no doubt at 
all that a man who distinctly oversteps it and 
over-reaches his neighbour by sharp practice 
is stigmatized as dishonourable ; and it is 

181 



182 THE FUTURE 

further recognized that, on the whole, honour- 
able behaviour pays better than the reverse. 

Complexity of scheming, or shall we say 
duplicity, is not appreciated ; it is universally 
condemned as double dealing. A certain kind 
of strong simplicity is favourably regarded and 
exerts a beneficent influence. Single-minded- 
ness — simplicity — the opposite of duplicity — is 
on the whole what we aim at. 

But unfortunately the intercourse between 
nations is otherwise conducted. Its recognized 
method is Diplomacy, which is another word 
for Duplicity. Secret treaties, spying informa- 
tion, underhand practices, and over -reaching 
methods, are thought to be the natural and 
proper methods of diplomatic intercourse. So 
long as this goes on international business is 
conducted under serious difficulties ; and if only 
single -mindedness and simplicity could be 
introduced and accepted as the traditional 
method — to depart from which would be dis- 
honourable — how vast would be the improve- 
ment ! The change is bound to come in time — 
we cannot go on always as at present, — and for 
its speedier coming let us exert ourselves to 
the utmost. 

We are all parts of humanity, and if one 
member suffer, all others suffer with it. Fair 
dealing is becoming the essence of prosperity 
in business. Fair dealing between nation and 
nation will conduce to the prosperity as well 
as to the peace of the world. 

To see a nation disregard its obligations, 
tear up its treaties, and spread abroad stupid 
and malicious lies, is no joy to the rest of the 
world — not even to its enemies. It is a grief 
and a humiliation, an insult to humanity. There 
would be a kind of stern joy in meeting an 



TASK OF HUMANITY 183 

honourable foe — one with whom at the con- 
clusion of strife we could shake hands heartily 
across the battlefields and welcome back with 
brotherly love. 

But now, alas ! where is the honour of our 
foe ? Even in his own eyes the word must 
have become despicable. 

'■ The word ' honour ' when applied to a 
nation is sometimes used in a sense almost 
opposite to the ' honour ' of an individual. An 
honourable man is one who declines to take 
any advantage of his neighbour, either by 
violence, legality, or deceit, and seeks to set 
right any financial advantage he may have 
improperly or accidentally gained. A secret 
treaty with one neighbour against the interests 
of another would not be made by an honour- 
able man ; while the repudiation of his cove- 
nant or cynical breaking of his given word is 
unthinkable. But between nation and nation we 
had all, more or less, been labouring under 
the delusion that there is a genuine divergence 
of interests, and that prosperity of one nation 
depends on the ruin of others : whereas if 
any permanent settlement is to be reached we 
must escape from this delusion and learn to 
see more clearly a common goal for the human 
race." 

' ' The man who feels no regret for the ruined 
honour of other nations, must be poor in 
sympathy for the honour of his own country." 

Seen with far-sighted vision our country's 
real interests are not the selfish considerations 
which ordinarily go by that name, any more 
than they are so for an individual : there are 
times when it is our duty to lend a helping 
hand, even at some risk to ourselves . For 
instance — as Mrs. Browning says, — " non -inter- 



184 THE FUTURE 

vention in the affairs of neighbouring States 
is a high political virtue ; but non-inter- 
ference does not mean passing by on the other 
side when your neighbour falls among thieves. 
... If patriotism be a virtue indeed, it 
cannot mean an exclusive devotion to our 
country's interests, for that is only another 
form of devotion to personal interests, family 
interests, or provincial interests, all of which, 
if not driven past themselves, are vulgar and 
immoral objects." 

The more the nations co-operate, the stronger 
feeling of nationality. That is indeed an 
instrument without which our conjoint effort 
would be much weakened. Let us always stand 
up for the integrity of the smaller nations. 

The more the nations co-operate, the stronger 
and happier will humanity become. Together 
we have to strive for the mastery over Nature, 
for the overcoming of disease, for the better 
education of the race, for the triumph of mind 
over matter and of soul over body. In this 
we must give each other all the help and 
encouragement we can. The task is hard 
enough without fratricidal strife. 

" Nationality is sacred to me," said Mazzini, 
" because I see in it the instrument of labour 
for the good and progress of all men." Mazzini 
based his love of country on the faith that the 
claims of humanity come first, and that a 
country is false to itself if it does not keep in 
view the good of all mankind. If it finds 
its strength in the weakness of another, if it 
is indifferent to the cause of struggling nations, 
it has no right to exist as a nation. " National 
life and international life should be the two 
manifestations of the same principle, the love 
of good." 



TASK OF HUMANITY 185 

The apostrophe of Fichte, quoted at the end 
of Chapter I, is the peroration of his famous 
Address to the German Nation which he issued 
in 1807 after the humiliation inflicted on 
Germany by Napoleon at the beginning of last 
century. It was a summons to the spirit of 
Nationality. 

Nation and Country, he claims, extend far 
beyond the State. For ordinary times the spirit 
of civic well-being is sufficient, but for dis- 
turbed and unprecedented occasions the only 
spirit that can be put at the helm is one 
generated by the consuming flame of the higher 
Patriotism, which conceives the nation as the 
embodiment of the eternal. 

Among the steps that can be taken to create 
that spirit he looks to Education as the means 
that had hitherto been overlooked. He knows 
that the Press will try to ridicule a spiritual 
weapon of that kind, but he says : 

" Perhaps I deceive myself, but I cannot part 
with it, as it is all I care to live for, — 1 hope 
to convince some Germans and bring them to 
see that nothing but Education can rescue us 
from the miseries that overwhelm us." 

This was understood by the German people, 
and on the obelisk erected in his honour at 
Berlin they have placed this inscription : — 

" The Teachers shall shine as the brightness 
of the firmament, and they that turn many 
to righteousness as the stars for ever and 
ever." 

So his nation listened, and did attend to 
Education : attended to it more thoroughly than 
any other nation ; and it is to this cause that 
they owe their real progress and access of 
power. They have spoiled it, but that was due 
to the defects of their other qualities. They 



186 THE FUTURE 

were unable to divest themselves of pedantry, 
they were earnest and accomplished in many 
good directions, but their learning took a pon- 
derous and unattractive form, and they inflicted 
a mechanical system upon their youth. Upon 
the fly-leaf of one of their text-books the 
English writer " Bagshot " is said to have 
relieved his mind by writing the following 
diatribe : — 

' My heart," he writes, " goes out to the 
unhappy German youth who have fallen under 
the yoke of this horrible pedant. It enrages 
me to think of him and a hundred like him 
let loose on a country to turn its schools and 
universities into gigantic tool -factories for the 
making of human implements. To-morrow I 
will start for Germany arid tell this man to his 
face that education has no purpose but to make 
men philosophers. He will not understand my 
meaning, and he will laugh in my face, but 
happily there are some people in Germany who 
do understand, and by and by they will rise up 
and slay these pedants and save their country." 

Well, they did not rise in time to save their 
country, though perhaps they will rise now to 
assist its recuperation. But the worst of their 
failure to avoid swamping genuine education 
with Kultur, is that it will tend to discredit 
education itself — in their own minds and in 
the minds of other nations. 

Yet the war ought to show us how intense 
is the need for better and higher education 
among the governing classes of this country. 
I do not specify which the governing classes 
really are — that may be differently regarded — 
but their vast ignorance of everything relating 
to science is admitted on all hands — admitted 
without shame and even with a sort of bastard 



TASK OF HUMANITY 187 

pride by most of those who may be called 
our governing oligarchy. Surely we shall not 
let science continue to grub along like a sort 
of Cinderella, called in occasionally when 
housework has to be done, but otherwise left to 
sit among the ashes and brood. 

Men of science are usually content to go on 
with their studies and be attended to only when 
they expound some fresh discovery, or when 
some of their inventions come into practical 
use. But there come periods when the nation's 
neglect of science, and mistrust of its workers, 
lead perilously near to disaster. At those times 
they have to speak ; and some scientific men 
are speaking now, and calling attention to the 
momentous contrast in this respect between the 
enemy nation and our own. Never was the 
parable of the Unjust Steward so illuminated as 
it is to-day, never was the need to learn from 
the wisdom of this world more forcibly urged 
by the march of events. Science alone is 
powerless to save humanity, but science 
neglected and kept in the background may 
help to ruin it. Among much evil, the 
organized pursuit of science and development 
of its application has been one good ; and to it 
the strength of the German nation, for better for 
worse, is largely due. I fear that Britain has 
not learnt that full strength yet. Defect of 
soul may render it ultimately impotent, but in 
itself the weapon is one of power, and no vice 
need be inherent in its use. 

We are not yet awake to the material weak- 
ness of our position, and perhaps it would be 
a calamity if the present catastrophe were over 
before this lesson had been driven into our 
brains. 

A pittance doled out by Government depart- 



188 THE FUTURE 

ments, and administered with rigid economy, 
is no way to encourage research. Some lavish- 
ness is necessary, and much trust. The un- 
scrupulous scientific man can make money now : 
it is not difficult, if you are ready to abandon 
the high ambition of youth and take your part 
in fhe world -scramble on its own terms. But 
what folly it is to throw away the enthusiasm 
of youth as if it were of no value, and limit the 
possibility of scientific achievement to the few 
hours that can be spared from the effort to 
earn a precarious livelihood by teaching and 
examining. 

The only way to bring- the weakness of the 
present position home to people in general is 
to emphasize the side of the applications of 
science to industry and manufacture. Every- 
thing really depends on research for its own 
sake ; but the highest genius cannot be 
organized, it can only be maintained — funda- 
mental discoveries are not made to order : 
this kind goeth not out save by prayer and 
fasting. But, even for that, material means 
must be forthcoming ; and it is only when a 
Royal Institution provides the laboratories, or 
when family accident renders an individual what 
is called " independent " — absurd word, — that 
a Faraday or a Cavendish becomes possible. 
Never will more than the few realize the import- 
ance of pure science ; but its application to 
industry ought to appeal to all, one would have 
thought, in this commercial community. But 
no, the power of indirection has not yet been 
fully grasped, and still only the direct and 
obvious means are employed by most of those 
who are strenuously trying to increase their 
business. 

English official neglect of science has been 



TASK OF HUMANITY 189 

a byword among those who are behind the 
scenes and who realize what might be 
done — what in fact has been done in other 
countries. 

The difference between German thoroughness 
and our supineness is felt in many sciences, 
but it is felt most strongly in the science which 
owes most to Germany — namely chemistry. 
Chemists have inveighed against the dis- 
couragement offered to them here, compared 
with opportunities provided for chemical re- 
search in Germany, and have pointed to the 
practical and commercial results and conse- 
quences which flow from this difference — conse- 
quences which are now being bitterly driven 
home. A recent Address to the Society of 
Chemical Industry was devoted by its President, 
Professor Frankland, to this very theme^ and I 
shall quote a few extracts so as to illustrate at 
first hand the strong feeling which throughout 
the last half-century has existed among 
chemists : — 

" The mischief caused through the neglect of 
chemistry by practical men in this country has 
been so subtle that to a large extent "it has 
remained concealed from the average man of 
intelligence and from the governmental 
classes. . . . The systematic neglect of 
chemical science and the failure by manu- 
facturers to utilize the services of highly 
qualified chemists, could only lead to the result 
that all the industries which are dependent on 
a profound knowledge of chemistry must tend 
to disappear from our midst, and pass into the 
hands of those who are prepared, not only to 
apply new chemical discoveries to industry, but 
even to prosecute the most varied chemical 
investigations in the hope of sooner or later 



190 THE FUTURE 

making discoveries which shall be of advantage 
to their commercial undertakings. 

" It is in the possession of such schools of 
research, both in the universities and in the 
chemical factories, that Germany has by two 
generations the lead of all other countries in the 
world. . . . The facts which I have brought 
forward speak for themselves and proclaim in 
the most convincing manner the stupendous pro- 
gress which has been made by Germany in the 
chemical industries during the past forty years. 
... If the chemical industries are to be re- 
habilitated in this country, there must be a 
complete change in the attitude of mind towards 
science in general, and towards chemical science 
in particular, amongst the influential classes of 
the population ; and it will certainly not be 
effected by following the precept ' business as 
usual,' but by pursuing a policy which is the 
exact opposite of what is implied by that vulgar 
and undignified phrase. . . . The study of 
chemistry in this country now only draws those 
men who either have or think they have an 
overpowering zeal and passion for the science, 
to which they devote themselves against the 
advice of their friends, and in spite of the 
warnings of the professors of chemistry by 
whom they are initiated." 

And to show that this represents no indi- 
vidual opinion, but is representative of those 
who have special knowledge on the subject, here 
is part of the text of a Memorial presented by 
the Chemical Society to the Government on 
The Position of Chemical Industries. 

" Though, during the past thirty years, there 
have been some signs of progress in the 
application of science to the chemical manu- 
factures of the country, there can be no doubt 



TASK OF HUMANITY 191 

that in this respect we are still far behind 
several foreign countries, especially Germany, 
where it has been fully recognized for more 
than half a century that ' scientific research 
work, carried out in the laboratory, is the soul 
of industrial prosperity.' 

" As representatives of chemical science we 
are of opinion that the main causes of the back- 
ward condition of chemical industry in this 
country have been : — 

1. The defects of our educational 
system and particularly the lack of recog- 
nition of the importance of research as 
an essential part of the training of the 
student of science. 

2. The want of scientific knowledge 
on the part of the community at large, 
especially of manufacturers, and the non- 
appreciation of the true value of scientific 
research. 

3. The lack of organization amongst 
various chemical and allied industries. 

4. The almost total want of sympathy 
and co-operation between manufacturers 
and workers in pure science." 

Nevertheless, as Professor Frankland says : — 
" Notwithstanding the absence of material 
inducements, I venture to say without fear of 
contradiction that there is more original investi- 
gation being prosecuted in this country by 
chemists than by any other body of British 
men of science ; and this 1 attribute to the 
fact that such a large proportion of our number 
have either been at German Universities or 
are the pupils of those who have been at these 
centres of research. Nor are any of us, I 



192 THE FUTURE 

am sure, even during this unfortunate crisis, 
unmindful of the hospitality and the inspiration 
which we have received in the schools of the 
enemy." 

That is quite true ; in pure science we have 
no enemy. Discoveries once made are open 
to all ; and all are co-operators and friends. 
A wholesome spirit of emulation may exist, but 
that is very different from ruthless competition. 
The feeling of co-workers in every depart- 
ment of knowledge is one of camaraderie and 
friendship, just as it appears to be beginning 
to be among artisans. The present miserable 
mania has interrupted this feeling for a time, 
but it will be renewed hereafter ; and though 
indirect in its effect, there is no feeling more 
immediately tending towards goodwill and 
peace. 




CHAPTER XXIV 

PEACE AND DISARMAMENT 

ISARMAMENT is not a policy : it will 
'be a consequence, an effect, following 
upon a changed spirit in humanity. 
" The true doctrine of peace is not the 
Tolstoyan gospel of non-resistance ; it is, 
indeed, its very negation. It is no part of 
the doctrine of the pacifist that he shall place 
himself at the mercy of the militarist, and that 
in his very endeavour to secure peace he shall 
disarm himself whilst the militarist is preparing 
to attack him. The Utopian says : ' Disarma- 
ment first, conversion afterwards.' Common- 
sense and sound reason reply : * Such a policy 
would be suicidal. Faith must precede works. 
Let the world be first converted, and disarma- 
ment must needs follow.' . . . Towards that 
political education and conversion the schools 
will do — must do — a great deal in the future. 
They are doing very little in the present. At 
present the intellectual training of the schoolboy 
is hopelessly antiquated, and is almost entirely 
based on the study of the military civilizations 
of the past. The mind of the schoolboy imbibes 
from his earliest years the poison of militarism 
and of the old Imperialism. In ordinary times 
he only learns about the glamour and the 
romance of the wars of olden days ; he learns 

O 193 



194 THE FUTURE 

nothing about the horrors and realities of war 
to-day." So said Dr. Sarolea in 191 2. 

He also said that the Universities were doing 
at present little more than the schools ; and 
that the Churches were doing least of all. 

If we wish for peace we must prepare for 
peace ; we must seek peace and ensue it — 
not in a passive non-resisting manner but in a 
very active and energetic and strenuous way. 

11 And here is a lesson for those eager 
pacifists who try to make us love peace by 
talking of the folly and horrors of war. We 
shall only love peace when we have made it 
worthy of our love. Until then there will still 
be a narrow truth in the saying, Si vis pacem, 
para bellum. But that must give way to the 
greater truth that if you would have peace 
you must make it finer than war. And there 
is something to be learned from war, from its 
discipline and sacrifice and concord, of what 
peace ought to be." 

Hear Milton on this subject : — 

•" If after being released from the toils of 
war, you neglect the arts of peace, if your 
peace and your liberty be a state of warfare, 
if war be your only virtue, the summit of your 
praise, you will soon find peace most adverse 
to your interests. Your peace will only be a 
more distressing war, and that which you 
imagined liberty will prove the worst of 
slavery." 

That excellent little book called Thoughts on 
the War, by Mr. Clutton -Brock, contains many 
excellent passages, one or two of which I should 
like here to quote : — 

" War does us this good at least — that it 
makes us suddenly aware, of the difference 
between a gentleman at his club and a gentle-: 



PEACE AND DISARMAMENT 195 

man in the trenches. Beautiful things happen 
between officers and men when the British Army 
is at war, and it brings the tears to our eyes 
to hear of them. But it is not enough to feel 
these fine emotions and because of them to 
say that war is not all an evil. That is so only 
if war teaches us how to make a finer peace, and 
one that will cure us of all desire for war, — 
a peace in which gentlemen will prove them- 
selves, as these officers proved themselves ; and 
if they do not, they will lose the name of 
gentleman. In war there is a chance of great 
adventures for all men, rich and poor, and the 
poorest can be a hero. But we must make a 
peace too in which the poorest will have a 
chance of adventures of the mind and spirit, 
and in which all men will know that these are 
worth more than riches or the respect now given 
to riches. . . . Peace should not be full of 
aimlessness and stagnation, but of purpose and 
advance. It should mean an order like that 
of armies in the field, made by the tie between 
leaders and led, the tie of a common duty 
and a common opportunity. Then war would 
be merely a distraction from that purpose and 
a check to that advance, and men would be as 
impatient of it as if it were a noise breaking 
in upon music. ' 

" We speak of the adventures of peace, 
adventures of the mind and spirit. Most men 
know so little of these that to them the artist, 
the philosopher, the saint, the man of science, 
are not adventurers at all. They cannot believe 
in the exultation of victory where there is no 
enemy, in the thrill of discovery where there 
are only material obstacles to overcome. To 
them, and we cannot wonder at it, work is 
all part of a struggle for life and of the routine 



196 THE FUTUKE 

imposed upon men by that struggle ; and peace 
means that routine unbroken and uninspired. 
They may try to escape from it by gambling, 
by sport, by debauchery, by all the varieties of 
what we are pleased to call pleasure, and finally 
by war. But there is another escape, possible 
now to our civilization, with its new command 
of all the forces of Nature, an escape into the 
freedom of the mind which art and thought 
and religion offer to us. But what have we 
done yet with all our power to make that 
freedom possible to all?" 

"To be free," says Milton, "is the same 
thing as to be pious, to be wise, to be frugal 
and abstinent, to be temperate and just, and 
lastly, to be magnanimous and bravej and 
to be the opposite of these is to be a slave." 

" How can we have time for war among our- 
selves when there is infinity before us to be 
felt and probed in so short a span of life, when 
we have the power to create another world 
of art with all the hopes and desires of men 
shaping it and sounding through it? " 

But to this end the higher and more real 
education of the people is essential ; especially 
since the government of the country is now so 
largely in their hands. 

" The peoples of the world desire peace," 
said Bourtzeff, the Russian exile — and he, who 
has been in many lands, ought to know. But 
they also — if they would obtain peace — must 
exercise an eternal vigilance lest they fall into 
the hands of class-schemers and be betrayed 
into that which they do not desire. The 
example of Germany shows how easily a good 
and friendly and pacific people may by mere 
political inattention and ignorance, and by 
a quasi -scientific philosophy imposed on its 



PEACE AND DISARMAMENT 197 

political ignorance, be led into a disastrous 
situation. It shows how vitally necessary it 
is that the people, even the working masses 
and the peasants, should have some sort of 
political education and understanding. 

The power of political thinking, like any 
other power, only grows by exercise ; and as 
Edward Carpenter says : — 

" Until we rise, as a nation, to a conception 
of what we mean by our national life, finer and 
grander than a mere counting of trade-returns, 
what can we expect save disaster after disaster 
to bring us to our senses ? 

" Possibly in the conviction that she is 
fighting for a worthy object (the end of mili- 
tarism), and in the determination (if sincerely 
carried out) of once more playing her part 
in the world as the protector of small nations, 
Britain may find her salvation, and a cause 
which will save her. soul." 



CHAPTER XXV 

NATIONAL REARRANGEMENT 

We beseech Thee to give to all nations Unity, Peace, and 
Concord 

FOR the general public to make up its mind 
concerning details of national rearrange- 
ment after the war is no doubt unpardonable 
and futile ; and yet we cannot but hope for 
certain changes, and can hardly refrain from 
privately thinking over them, well knowing that 
our meditations carry no authority, and must be 
modified — perhaps extensively modified — by cir- 
cumstances. The task of arrangement will be 
a severe one, and many proposals must be dis- 
cussed which cannot in their entirety be carried 
out. What we may all legitimately hope is 
that it will be in no vengeful spirit that this 
country will enter into the negotiations — save 
for the insisting on just punishment for actual 
crime. But that accomplished, the right of 
defeated foes to live — and not only to live but 
to prosper, subject to heavy indemnities for the 
losses they have inflicted on their neighbours by 
their hideously mistaken policy — that right will, 
let us hope, be fully recognized. For a per- 
manent settlement must be based upon public 
right . 

Here let us quote the eloquent utterance of 
the Prime Minister, as laying down a general 
basis of settlement : — 

198 



NATIONAL REARRANGEMENT 199 

4 The idea of public right/' says Mr. Asquith, 
" what does it mean when translated into con- 
crete terms ? It means, first and foremost, the 
clearing of the ground by the definite repudia- 
tion of militarism as the governing factor in 
the relation of States, and in the future mould- 
ing of the European world. It means, next, 
that room must be found and kept for the in- 
dependent existence and the free development of 
the smaller nationalities — each with a corporate 
consciousness of its own. Belgium, Holland, 
and Switzerland, and the Scandinavian coun- 
tries, Greece, and the Balkan States, must 
be recognized as having exactly as good a title 
as their more powerful neighbours — more 
powerful in strength as in wealth — exactly as 
good a title to a place in the sun. And it 
means, finally, or it ought to mean, perhaps by 
a slow and gradual process, the substitution for 
force, for the clash of competing ambition, for 
grouping and alliances and a precarious equi- 
poise, — the substitution for all these things of a 
real European partnership, based on the recog- 
nition of equal right and established and en- 
forced by a common will." 

Let us therefore, who agree with this admir- 
able statement, cultivate as far as possible the 
idea of a federation of European nations — the 
recognition of common interests, without com- 
mon jealousies and antagonisms — a federation 
for all purposes, both peace and war. Let us 
have fewer languages and more mutual under- 
standing, freer mutual interchange of com- 
modities ; and if there is any European war 
henceforward, let it be recognized as that hor- 
rible evil, civil war. Moreover, in order to give 
strength and solidity to the federation, let every 
citizen pass through a period of disciplinary 



200 THE FUTURE 

training for his better education and bodily 
development, and let the immense reserve 
potential army thus constituted be used as an 
international police to see that henceforward no 
one misguided nation, under some ambitious 
ruler or set of rulers, flouts the rest of humanity 
and tries to set itself up as above everything 
human or divine. Let it be a police force able 
to carry out the dictates of international law 
with a strong and resolute hand ; but let it 
jealously guard freedom — the freedom even of 
revolt — and only come into action in suppression 
of actual crime. And if ever, under unwise or 
vicious counsellors, the British Fleet be used as 
a weapon of aggression and domineering in- 
solence — which God forbid — then let Britain be 
made to suffer by the rest of the civilized world. 

The reason our command of the seas has been 
regarded with equanimity is because we only use 
our Fleet to keep the seas open and trade routes 
equally free to all nations. Under a policy of 
artificial limitations, invidious Tariffs, and 
restricted commerce, our Fleet might possibly 
become a menace ; and its dominance could 
then be properly resented by any nation whose 
commercial activities it tended unfairly to 
restrain. 

Our policy should surely be continually to 
urge the advantage of Free Trade all round. 
Let every country produce that which its 
economical conditions and natural aptitudes best 
fit it for. Freedom in such matters undoubtedly 
benefits humanity by enabling each country to 
develop its resources to the uttermost, whether 
assisted by foreign enterprise and capital and 
by imported labour, or otherwise. And let 
every nation, small or large, develop its own 
genius and individuality, free from any attempt 



NATIONAL REARRANGEMENT 201 

at coercion to one pattern : let it have full 
responsibility for its own errors, and credit for 
its own successes. 

Small Nations 

We have stood up for the small nations ; we 
have recognized their rights and their value. 
The British Empire is already a federation of 
friendly nations, and the independence which 
ever since the mistake about America has been 
granted to its Colonies has been more than 
justified. 

We must see to it that a country nearer home 
is emancipated too, and left free to develop its 
own genius without mistrust and without coer- 
cion. Ireland, by its striking loyalty, as well as 
by its always conspicuous bravery, has earned 
its modified independence, and henceforth must 
be one of the friendly nations in the British 
Empire . 

Consider what we owe to the small nations — 
we may almost say that to them is due the 
progress of the world. In some of the best 
epochs in history all nations were small ; com- 
munities which produced some of the greatest 
of mankind were no more than cities. Value 
in spiritual things cannot be numerically esti- 
mated ; nor has numbering the people always 
been reckoned a judicious act. 

Of high modern examples of small popula- 
tions Lord Bryce gives the following historical 
summary : — 

4 In modern Europe what do we not owe to 
little Switzerland, lighting the torch of freedom 
six hundred years ago, and keeping it alight 
through all the centuries when despotic mon- 
archies held the rest of the European Continent ? 



202 THE FUTURE 

And what to free Holland, with her great men of 
learning and her painters surpassing those of 
all other countries save Italy ? So the small 
Scandinavian nations have given to the world 
famous men of science, from Linnaeus down- 
wards, poets like Tegner and Bjornson, scholars 
like Madvig, dauntless explorers like Fridtjof 
Nansen. England had, in the age of Shake- 
speare, Bacon, and Milton, a population little 
larger than that of Bulgaria to-day. The 
United States, in the days of Washington and 
Franklin and Jefferson and Hamilton and Mar- 
shall, counted fewer - inhabitants than Denmark 
or Greece." 

And the following is by Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, 
Vice- Chancellor of Sheffield : — 

" Almost everything which is most precious 
in our civilization has come from small States — 
the Old Testament, the Homeric poems, the 
Attic and the Elizabethan drama, the art of the 
Italian Renaissance, the common law of Eng- 
land. Nobody needs to be told what humanity 
owes to Athens, Florence, Geneva, or Weimar. 
The world's debt to any one of these small 
States far exceeds all that has issued from the 
militant monarchies of Louis XIV, of Napoleon, 
of the present Emperor of Germany. ... In 
the particular points of heroic and martial 
patriotism, civic pride and political prudence, 
they have often reached the highest levels to 
which it is possible for humanity to attain ; and 
from Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle, as well 
as from the illustrious school of Florentine his- 
torians and publicists, the world has learnt nine- 
tenths of its best political wisdom." 

But indeed, when considering the possible 
outcome from small communities, there is no 
need to go beyond the country now called 



NATIONAL REARRANGEMENT 203 

Syria ! And it is interesting to remember that 
that sufficiently momentous Advent occurred 
during a numbering of the people by the 
Emperor of Rome. One more head to be 
counted — or perhaps to be ignored by the 
enumerators as too insignificant an item in the 
stable of an inn ; true majesty being only dis- 
cernible by the extra simple and the extra 
wise ! 

But, returning to more prosaic matters, it is 
manifest that one of the minor advantages flow- 
ing from the existence of smaller States consists 
in the fact that they serve as convenient labora- 
tories for social experiment on a moderate 
scale. Much material for the comparative study 
of social and industrial expedients has been 
provided by the enterprise of the American State 
Legislatures. Such experiments as women's suf- 
frage, or as the State control of the public sale 
of alcoholic drink, or as a thoroughgoing appli- 
cation of the Reformatory theory of punishment, 
would hardly be seriously contemplated in large, 
old, and settled communities, were it not for the 
fact that they have been tried upon a smaller 
scale by the more adventurous Legislatures of 
the New World. 

The East of Europe 

If I attempt to touch on the thorny questions 
bristling round the East of Europe, it must be 
in a spirit of irresponsibility ; not as an his- 
torian writing for statesmen, but as an 
ordinary citizen discussing contemporary possi- 
bilities with others. To hold aloof altogether 
and leave everything to politicians is the 
German not the English method : it is per- 
missible to take an interest even in difficult 



204 THE FUTUEE 

questions, and to welcome one solution rather 
than another when it is offered. 

This war, coupled with the warning experi- 
ence gained in the minor war which preceded 
it, when the Turk was nearly ousted and when 
the victors fell into the trap laid for them by 
Prussian diplomacy, ought to make a vast 
difference to that physically attractive part of 
Europe which has perforce remained backward 
in all arts except the art of fighting. They 
have had terrible things to put up with, and 
the older among us well remember the horrible 
atrocities inflicted upon the Bulgarians by the 
governing Turk. But the Bulgarian atrocities 
have now been outdone, and neither the East 
of Europe nor even Asia can teach us anything 
in that direction. 

Surely all that internecine period will be now 
written off, and the Balkan nations will learn 
to direct their energies in more peaceful and 
profitable directions, except when they may 
have to combine against a common foe. 

The gallantry shown by Serbia is univer- 
sally recognized ; and its future is clearly 
going to be an important one. It is strange 
to recall that the present war immediately arose 
because that country resented a gratuitous 
attempt, sustained by Prussia and instigated 
1 believe chiefly by Hungary, to destroy it and 
blot out its independence. 

Serbia deserves, and doubtless will acquire, 
large provinces on the seaboard of the Adriatic, 
chiefly consisting of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

Roumania, if it joins the Allies, will pre- 
sumably acquire that part of Hungary which 
is so clearly required to give it a rational 
boundary, and which is kin to it in race and 
language, namely Transylvania. 



NATIONAL REARRANGEMENT 205 

Italy — thrice welcome as an ally — will at 
length attain its still unredeemed Provinces ; 
and no longer will Trieste be a pistol at the 
head of Venice. 

All that is comparatively easy. The diffi- 
culty will be to see how the Teutonic nations 
associated with German -speaking Austria can 
likewise have an outlet to the Mediterranean. 
To give them Fiume, which seems the only 
feasible plan, is to cut into the Slavonic fringe, 
and will entail serious difficulty ; yet a great 
continental nation ought not to be debarred 
from the sea, and a settlement which does not 
provide some kind of free trade outlet is likely 
to cause restlessness and future trouble. 

Germany, once liberated from Prussian bully- 
ing control, may arrange for itself to unite its 
ancient kingdoms into a real coequal Federa- 
tion, and to have its headquarters at Vienna or 
Munich or Dresden ; and it may be hoped that 
then it will have a fine future before it, when 
the sins of the present generation have been 
wiped out. 

To hamper the natural development of any 
nation or people is folly, even when it is the 
outcome of a well-meaning policy. If we 
had not mistakenly taken part in the boxing 
in of Russia, Constantinople would long ago 
have been in its hands ; we should have 
been freed from its inevitable efforts to press 
out in other directions, ever since, its natural 
exit being closed ; and we should not now 
be seriously hampered by the problem of the 
Dardanelles. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

THE FUTURE OF EUROPE 

THE Nation as a whole cannot enter into 
details concerning conditions of peace, but 
it may strengthen the hands of its respon- 
sible ministers and assist future negotiations if 
it makes up its mind to a few essentials. 
Among these are : — 

Settlement of boundaries on national and 
racial lines, in accordance with the wishes of 
the inhabitants if strongly expressed. 

Punishment of highly placed criminals who 
ordered atrocities. Among which the use of 
non-combatants as a screen for a firing line is 
perhaps the most infernal, because it is a newly 
invented outrage on humanity and beneath the 
standard even of savage warfare. 

The universally recognized duty of all civi- 
lized nations to Belgium cannot be better 
expressed than in the words of Wordsworth — 
merely substituting that other word for the 
word " Spain.' 1 

" The first end to be secured by [Belgium] 
is riddance of the enemy ■ the second, per- 
manent independence. . . . Humanity and 
honour and justice, and all the sacred feelings 
connected with atonement, retribution, and 
satisfaction ; shame that will not sleep, and 
the sting of unperformed duty ; and all the 
powers of the mind, the memory that broods 

206 



THE FUTURE OF EUROPE 207 

over the dead and turns to the living, the under- 
standing, the imagination, and the reason ; — 
demand and enjoin that the wanton oppressor 
should be driven, with confusion and dismay, 
from the country which he has so heinously 
abused." 

International crime is a calamity, but it is 
one that should be promptly put down. Prus- 
sianism must cease ; the dominion of Prussia 
over Germany and of the Prussian spirit as it 
has spread into Austria, Russia, and other 
countries, must terminate. Too long has the 
world suffered the arrogance of this upstart 
nation . 

But beyond these essential preliminaries, 
there are a number of problems which soon will 
have to be faced, and which may be partly 
enumerated : — 

First as regards the prestige of Prussia and 
its supposed services to the rest of Germany. 
Dr. Sarolea, summing up the situation in 
19 1 2, says that he is convinced that German 
unity would have come sooner without the inter- 
vention of Prussia, that it would have been 
closer, more real, more permanent, and attained 
at far less cost. 

" German unity is far from being an accom- 
plished fact. Germany remains a geographical 
expression. After all, even to the most super- 
ficial observer, it must be apparent to-day that 
iron and blood have not welded Germany 
together. Neither Schleswig-Holstein nor 
Alsace-Lorraine, nor Hanover nor Poland, are 
integral parts of the Empire. Technically the 
kingdom of Prussia to-day includes many 
provinces, like the Rhine Provinces, which 
have nothing Prussian in character. . . . 
Historic Prussia is comparatively barren and 



208 THE FUTURE 

monotonous, whereas Germany has a rich diver- 
sity of smiling vineyards and romantic scenery, 
is traversed by magnificent rivers, is the seat 
of prosperous industries. Germany can boast of 
a comparatively pure Teutonic stock ; Prussians 
proper are a mixed race, and their composition 
is more Slavonic than Teutonic." 

Prussia has been a danger and disaster to 
Germany as well as to the rest of the world, 
and German unity has been more formal than 
real until the present tragic tightening of the 
bonds which precedes their snapping. 

The unification of Germany, so far as it has 
gone, was really accomplished by the will of 
the people. The States were ready for it in 
1864 : it was only declined then because Prus- 
sian arrogance objected to receive an imperial 
crown at the hands of the people. It was ulti- 
mately achieved by blood and iron, and 
achieved badly, with Prussia in an intolerable 
position ; though Germany, being docile, ac- 
quiesced, and has suffered accordingly, especi- 
ally from having imbibed some of the vices 
of the conquering State. For these it must 
suffer in the future too ; but the result should 
be that something more like the old German 
spirit will arise out of the ashes. 

" Modern Germany has made obvious to all 
in what sense the traditional ways of the West 
are wrong ; the pain she has inflicted, the 
suffering she endures, will induce, at last, the 
long -wanted change. . . . None can foretell 
what the Germans will be like even ten years 
hence ; an enormous amount of what they are 
committing just now has nothing whatever to 
do with their soul — it is the result of machinery, 
automatism, prejudice. If the machine falls to 
pieces, all may change.'* 



THE FUTURE OF EUROPE 209 

As for rearrangement in Europe, the peoples- 
must largely settle it for themselves. It is 
not our business to arrange their affairs, though 
we may give help where it is needed. We 
shall certainly acquire no jot of Europe — not 
even Heligoland ; — it belongs to Holstein, let 
it share the fate of Holstein. And if with- 
Schleswig that province wishes to return to 
Denmark, as other provinces will wish to return 
to France, let it be so. If not, Heligoland 
may have to be made an International Station,. 
for security to the rest of the world. 

So also in the near East, let the nations 
secure their individuality and combine in suchi 
way as they think best, on a basis of nationality 
and sympathetic understanding. The time has 
passed for alien rule. If German -speaking 
Austria wishes to unite with the federated Ger- 
man Southern States, it is only appropriate that 
it should ; and it would help to emancipate all. 
the others from the dominance of Prussia. The 
present haphazard Austrian Empire will break 
up ; but the historic German Empire may again 
have its seat in Vienna. 

It may be that thereby also the re -constituted- 
Germany will gain an outlet to the Mediter- 
ranean, instead of being limited for ocean- 
going purposes to a small coast -line on the 
North Sea. Let us hope that it will develop 
its peaceful arts and commerce to the benefit 
of itself and of the world. No restrictions or 
hampering of the peaceful development of 
German industry and commerce should be en- 
forced. But the Prussian Navy — the Navy of 
the Kiel Canal — has been made a bad use of : 
whatever fate is in store for that destructive 
force, it is too dangerous a weapon to leave 
in the hands of those who wish for world 



210 THE FUTURE 

dominance. The object of its creation was 
not to keep the seas open for international 
traffic, but to destroy all traffic but its own. 
That cannot be tolerated. 

But, except the provinces of Prussian aggran- 
dizement, Germany itself need not lose terri- 
tory. The robberies of Prussia must go back 
to their owners, except in so far as the inhabi- 
tants wish to unite with Germany. Germany 
may thus be united on a better basis, and in 
a more real sense, than before. 

As for the German colonies, it has no need of 
any in the Pacific ; they may be considered 
emancipated from its hated rule. For the 
others let time decide. It has still to learn 
how to govern them, hitherto it has failed : 
though Germans can colonize admirably under 
other flags. Politically they are behind the 
time, and for the present will have plenty to 
do to put their house in order and keep them- 
selves to themselves. Ultimately there may 
be a future for German Colonies in South 
America ; and if that development be at- 
tempted, I trust that we shall imitate the 
example of our friends in the Northern Conti- 
nent and remain strictly neutral and impartial. 
Unless indeed — which God avert — international 
crime be again committed. 

The Kingdom of Poland must be reconstituted 
and re -united, presumably under the suzerainty 
of the Czar ; and if possible it should have an 
outlet to the Baltic Sea for trading purposes. 
For if in the past the Polish nation made 
grievous mistakes, " no nation has paid more 
dearly for them, or has retrieved them more 
heroically. No nation has been greater in mis- 
fortune. Surely a nation which has produced 
great men in all branches of human activity, 



THE FUTURE OF EUROPE 211 

which has produced a Copernicus, a Sobieski, 
a Kosciusko, a Mickiewic, and a Chopin, is 
not a nation of mere barbarians. A nation 
which for a hundred and fifty years has asserted 
itself against overwhelming odds has proved 
its right to live." 

The immense Empire of Russia must no 
longer be land-locked ; it must be trusted with 
the key of its own door, and must undoubtedly 
possess Constantinople ; thereby its legitimate 
needs will be satisfied, and it need no longer 
press out to the sea in other directions. Of land 
it has ample and to spare ; and it would have 
had access to the sea more than half a century 
ago, had it not been for our grievously mis- 
taken policy of those days. 

The result may have turned out well however, 
for Russia of those days had not had its trials : 
it was still in many respects barbarous. In 
the interim, although its government has been 
under Prussian influence to its great detriment 
and discredit, it has made great progress, and 
now that it is freed from that malign influence 
we have hopes of better things. The world 
may owe a great debt to the Russia of the 
future. 

iWe cannot provide against every con- 
tingency ; our policy is to trust the Slavonic 
race now that it is, we hope permanently, 
emancipated from Prussian bedevilment. The 
heart of the Russian people is more sound 
and essentially Christian than perhaps that of 
any other nation. We shall find that it has 
much to teach us, and a genuine place in the 
higher spiritual development of the world. 
iWhen the political sins and shortcomings of 
Russia in the past — especially its brutal sup- 
pression of struggling 4 hopes for freedom — are 



212 THE FUTURE 

again thrust before our notice, — as they will 
be, — let us remember our own dealings with 
Ireland ; and let us recollect further that such 
errors, grievous as they are, belong to an early 
stage of development, and signify that the 
country responsible for them is legitimately 
behindhand, and has a century or two still to 
make up. 

I have some sympathy with the sentiments 
expressed by Mr. Cloudesley Brereton in an 
article in the Revue de Paris for 1 5 March 
191 5, which I translate thus : — 

" Most of our views of Russia come to us 
through that parti -coloured window, Germany, 
— whose particular interest it is to show us 
every colour except white. Personally I prefer 
to base my ideas of that country on the writings 
of Tolstoy, Dostoyevski, Maxim Gorki, and 
Stephen Graham, in which the greatness of the 
Russian soul shines out continually in all its 
naive simplicity. To me Russia, in spite of 
all her faults, appears an unlimited reservoir 
of brotherly love, compassion, and mercy. The 
great ideas of Russia, if they come into contact 
with our own, should help us to cast out much 
that is hard and narrow in our civilization, and 
thus create a new spirit in the Western peoples. 

" The other day," he goes on to say, " I 
asked Stephen Graham the following question : 
1 What will be our relations with the Russians 
at the end of the war ? ' He replied : ' Treat 
them generously and they will surpass you in 
generosity. But deal with them crookedly and 
they will undoubtedly turn upon you ! ' So 
diplomats, beware ! " 

There remains the problem of the Balkan 
States : doubtless too technical for amateur 
treatment. A few words therefore only. 



THE FUTURE OF EUROPE 213 

Serbia will gain extensive territory from 
Austria, and, in harmony it is to be hoped with 
Italy, will face the Adriatic and probably ac- 
quire the Slavonic part of Dalmatia. 

Greece, we hope, for its own sake, will join 
the Allies in time, under the guidance of its 
eminent statesman Venizelos ; and will thereby 
acquire Smyrna and some fine hinterland in Asia 
Minor, which is deserving of a better fate than 
its present derelict condition. 

Bulgaria, if it makes a wise choice and 
throws its powerful aid into the scale, will 
probably again enlarge its borders up to the 
Chataldja lines — this time in a permanent 
manner, and will get back a large tract of 
Macedonia. 

The Gates of the Black Sea will be a diffi- 
culty to any State, such as Roumania, for whom 
the Black Sea is the only seaboard. Whether 
the Dardanelles can by International Treaty be 
kept open for all peaceful trading, in the in- 
terests of countries which Border the Black Sea ; 
and whether the Kiel Canal can be similarly 
Internationalized and employed for commerce 
only, we must leave to Statesmen to decide. 

We might hope that henceforth Constanti- 
nople and Heligoland, like Gibraltar hitherto, 
may be used as guarantees of opportunity for 
peaceable development and progress. 

The imminent defeat of the Turk will eject 
the Turkish Government from Europe. But 
there is one small part of Asia that should like- 
wise be liberated from his blighting rule. The 
protectorate which has been exercised over 
Egypt, with admirable results, should be ex- 
tended to Syria, and that country be once more 
offered to the Jews. Some people think they 
do not want it, but they have not yet had the 



214 THE FUTURE 

refusal of it, — that responsibility should be 
offered them ; but whether they accept it or 
not, the Turk should go, and some measure 
of untaxed prosperity be restored to a tract 
of country immeasurably sacred to the greater 
part of mankind. It is natural for humanity to 
guard and care for places round which memory 
clings. There was a time when we might 
have acquiesced in the ousting of the Turk 
by Germany : that did not look at all improb- 
able. Now it is a thing that cannot be contem- 
plated ; it would be merely replacing one 
desecration by another." 

The simplest solution is to restore Palestine 
to Egypt, to which till comparatively recently 
it belonged, and thus secure its adequate pro- 
tection while leaving it free to develop its 
own resources in accordance with the genius 
of whatever inhabitants, Hebrew or other, go to 
live there. For in the future it may once again 
be prosperous, when the devastating blight of 
greedy Turkish misgovernment is removed. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

OTHER HOME REFORMS 

A PERSONALITY is compounded of moods y 
— serious sometimes and sometimes frivo- 
lous, sometimes gay, sometimes depressed ; 
so that an effort is occasionally required to 
realize that a single individuality is concerned 
all the time. Greater simplicity and consistency 
is expected from characters in literature, or they 
would be confusing. Actions, thoughts, and 
even tastes are in most real cases variable, 
and dependent on the prevailing mood ; and 
in each mood, if it last long enough, something 
definite can be accomplished. Wisdom lies 
in trying to coerce the less productive moods 
into harmony with those which really corre- 
spond to and are most approved by the higher 
self :— 

Tasks in hours of insight will'd 

Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd. 

And the mind of a nation is, in that sense,, 
moody too. It is strange now to look back 
over the frivolities and eccentricities, the ex- 
citements and trivialities, through which we 
have passed — we who have lived through the 
latter half of the nineteenth century : — from 
that trivial excrescence of the genuine aesthetic 
movement, genially satirized in "Patience,'" 
down to the inane foolishness of Tango Teas. 

215 



216 THE FUTURE 

But the mood of the nation is serious now : 
and now is the time for something good to be 
accomplished, and some real progress made. 

What a splendid spirit is now active I The 
self-sacrificing labour thrown into the Red 
Cross and Ambulance movement alone is 
magnificent. From the Queen Mother down- 
wards, every class is seeking, by influence, per- 
sonal support and personal work, to mitigate 
the hideous suffering and preserve some beauty 
and kindness on this planet. 

Our eyes henceforth may be wider open ; 
and with a keener perception of the dignity and 
beauty of life — yes even of the physical beauty 
of this island of ours, to which we have grown 
so accustomed that we fail adequately to appre- 
ciate it — we shall not so tamely allow it to be 
defaced and vulgarized in the supposed interests 
of trade. 

It is not a good thing to become careless 
and callous to scenes of beauty, and to acquiesce 
tamely in the disfigurement of home surround- 
ings. Beauty is one of the Divine attributes 
— a fact insufficiently remembered. Providence 
has given us a land which in its first flush of 
summer glory almost oppresses sensitive souls 
with unspeakable feeling ; and among the chief 
cities of the world architects have done much 
to place our own capital not indeed on an 
eminence but in a high and worthy place. 
Let us be careful of these trusts. 

Now that we have grown accustomed to more 
moderate darkness in London, we must not 
have those whisky advertisements flaunted 
across the Thames, nor the traffic made 
dangerous and the streets ugly and vulgar by 
revolving sky-signs ; while as for the country 
— the country which men have died to defend — 



OTHER HOME REFORMS 217 

shall it not at last be cleared of advertisement 
boards of pills and trash? 

This may seem a small matter, but it is 
typical of much. Why should the country 
be smeared over with the printed cries of street 
hawkers? Are we never to be able to clear 
our minds of sordid trifles unless we are rich 
enough to own large estates or to travel abroad ? 
The country does not belong to the hucksters — 
let them be satisfied with the towns. And 
there, let them be kept within reasonable 
bounds and subject to rational control. 

Landlords used to govern the country, as 
many laws testify : they have now largely given 
place to tradesmen ; but in all cases it is the 
lowest type who take advantage of the oppor- 
tunities offered, and who make themselves and 
their wares obnoxious. That is the worst of 
permitting abuses. A set whom their fellows 
despise rise into notoriety by the easy process 
of pressing their immunity to the utmost and 
becoming a public nuisance. In any company 
it is the noisy vulgarian who becomes con- 
spicuous ; and when conspicuousness is the 
thing desired, noise and vulgarity are the easiest 
steps to its attainment. If the shouting method 
were stopped all round — as it has been with 
almost inconvenient completeness in medicine 
and most of the professions — how much fairer 
it would be to the earnest and silent and digni- 
fied worker ! 

Party Politics 

One thing that I hope the war will, if not 
terminate, at any rate greatly mitigate the 
folly of, is the domination in this country 
of the idea and game of party politics. 
Politics has turned out to be too serious a 



218 THE FUTURE 

matter to be treated as an opportunity for a 
career and personal advancement. Government 
should be carried on by the best brains of the 
nation ; and differences of opinion should be 
helpful rather than hampering. The present 
coalition of parties — the aim at a truly com- 
prehensive National Government in face of a 
foe — represents what should be the attitude all 
the time. For there are plenty of foes to be 
contended against beside hostile militarism ; 
and to be continually working in the teeth of 
acrimonious opposition, sustained for the sake 
of opposition and in the hope of turning 
the Government out, is, unduly wearing and 
demoralizing : it cannot lead to the best 
results. 

It was noticeable not long ago how spokes -» 
men of the late Government, Lord Crewe for in- 
stance, in accepting the aid of the Opposition, 
was careful apologetically to say that he quite 
understood that the assistance was not given 
for their sake but for the Country's. Well of 
course it should always be given for the 
Country. But nevertheless some consideration 
is due to those who have the heavy burden 
of directing the policy of the Country ; and 
if some help were afforded for their sake too, 
it would be only reasonable. Such an idea is 
alien to the Party system, and those who are 
receiving help at the present time are anxious 
to disclaim any idea that they are misappro- 
priating it in that way. Yet the animosity 
between the parties, though always proclaimed 
and maintained and having its injurious effect, 
must be somewhat artificial, just as the ani- 
mosity of the foes in the trenches is. And, since 
war began, the politicians have been publicly 
fraternizing, on a sort of inverted Christmas 



OTHEK HOME REFORMS 219 

Day, in a way which, as private individuals, 
they either do or would like to do ordinarily. 

It is extraordinary that the only way effec- 
tively to disapprove of a Government measure 
— and nowadays all measures have to be 
Government measures — is to attack the pro- 
posal as a vicious one, to call the Government 
the worst of modern times, and to turn it out 
with invective and contumely. All this strong, 
language is part of the game ; it is called 
" an appeal to the constituencies." It is under- 
stood to be exaggerated, and what educated 
people consider idiotic, for the benefit of the 
ignorant constituents. This behaviour is really 
contempt of Court, and should be resented by 
voters instead of being enjoyed. Shouts of 
''Give it them," "Let them have it," repre- 
sent to the world that the attitude of the British 
to politics is like their enjoyment of a football 
scrimmage. Political discussion is treated as a 
variety of sport. I hope that we have all learnt 
that it is more serious than that. 

And, after all, what kind of people is it 
that hustings speeches influence ? Only the 
wobblers. The steady voters go on as usual, 
time after time. The election is determined 
by the small swaying body whose votes can be 
readily caught, — in the old days by bribery, 
in these days by fustian ; — and so we have 
" the swing of the pendulum," and the policy 
of 'the " Outs " versus .the " Ins " ; the 
Country never getting the benefit of more than 
half its brains, save among its permanent 
officials, who thereby acquire an undue amount 
of irresponsible and unintended and unrecog- 
nized though certainly in some cases beneficent 
power. 

It is sometimes thought that democratic 



220 THE FUTURE 

government is necessarily of a party kind ; but 
that is surely not true of a healthy democracy. 
Party politics appears to be a disease to which 
democracy is liable. Essentially, democracy 
is government by free discussion ; but free 
discussion is not synonymous with party dis- 
cussion. On the contrary, party discussion is 
far from free • and every party speaker, like 
a one-sided Counsel in a law case, must feel 
hampered by knowing that his slightest 
admission will be seized and exaggerated un- 
fairly. The party system in politics is not un- 
connected with the Advocate system in law. 
This is not to abuse it — it may be to some 
extent to justify, or at least to explain it. 
Forensic appeals are constantly being made to 
a jury : and the judicial summing-up is left 
to historians of the future. 

Differences of opinion there are, and ought 
to be, but these should be brought forward 
and opposed to each other fairly and squarely, 
in the hope that something better than either 
of the opposing opinions will emerge out of 
the discussion. Discussion, not conflict, — dis- 
cussion with full persuasion that every one is 
trying to do the best he can, and has no 
other motive — represents the right method of 
managing a great business. 

Undiscovered Genius 

A more economical utilization of the best 
brains of the nation should be another aim. 
Utilization not in politics alone, but in science 
and in industry. 

Have we not all been struck with the ability 
shown by assistants and foremen and skilled 
craftsmen such as carpenters ? This ability 



OTHER HOME REFORMS 221 

should be given fuller scope for its develop- 
ment. In a laboratory it usually is, more or 
less ; and the result, in one instance at least, 
was Faraday. 

But in the workshop what chance has a man 
of special ability to emerge ? A little, it is 
true. James Watt was an artisan who ulti^ 
mately got his chance ; but what pertinacious 
labour and severe trials did he not go through^ 
and what opposition he had to overcome ! His 
environment opposed and nearly frustrated even 
his great genius : a man of less strength of, 
body and tenacity of purpose would have suc- 
cumbed. His example shows that a man of 
genius, combined with strong character, can even 
now win his way to the front ; but the country 
is unwise to insist upon such a combination^ 
before it gets the benefit of the brains at its 
disposal. As far as possible, things should be 
so organized that ability, even if not specially 
conspicuous, should have its chance. Many 
more laboratories in proportion to the number 
of workshops, would give such a chance : 
laboratories free and unhampered by State 
regulations and control. If State subsidy means 
management by officials, its benefit is almost 
sterilized. 

But worse than that is the jealousy and 
restrictions imposed by workmen themselves. 
Their ideal of marching all together, each 
controlled and limited to a bare average, has 
been a scheme of self-defence adopted by a com- 
munity afflicted by past history and in danger 
of serfdom ; but it is not the way to develop 
individuality and give every genius his chance. 
It is, like the customary ideal of a public school, 
planned to suppress originality and maintain 
an average standard. In this way the humdrum 



222 THE FUTURE 

work of the world can be done, but no great 
production such as future ages will admire is 
likely : distinguished achievement is indeed 
only possible because providential arrange- 
ments sometimes overrule well-meaning human 
stupidity. 

The beehive system is splendid at a certain 
stage of development — something like it may 
be needed in war-time — but it is beneath the 
possible standard of humanity : we can aim- 
higher than that. That nation which learns 
how to discover and utilize its great men, in 
every walk of life, will forge ahead to a sur- 
prising extent, and will advance the general 
cause of civilization. We cannot create or 
control genius, it bloweth where it listeth, but 
we can control environment : that is our human 
privilege and duty. 

The debilitating struggle for bare subsist- 
ence should certainly cease. It cannot possibly 
be necessary. Enough for a living is so easily 
procured. Not so ' easily if agriculture is 
neglected : we ought to keep consciously 
before us the fact that everything has to come 
from the land. That is what receives the sun- 
shine ; and it is upon the energy of sunshine 
that the whole activity of our planet necessarily 
depends. The amount of the energy can be 
reckoned, and it is enough to feed far more 
people than ever lived at one time, or are ever 
likely to live. We have hardly yet learned how 
best to utilize it. 

But, if we had, it is not bread alone that man 
needs ; he should have leisure to cultivate his 
soul ; and education should assist him. Bare 
subsistence is bound to come first, but that 
should be easy : the really difficult things 
follow after that. 



OTHER HOME REFORMS 223 

Machinery may contribute to subsistence ; 
machinery, from the plough upwards, is neces- 
sary for that ; but wealth of soul is not in- 
creased by machinery. In so far as machines 
can perform bare mechanical tasks, and thereby 
confer more leisure upon human beings, their 
use is of manifest advantage. Steamships, 
instead of galleys of oars propelled by wretched 
slaves, represent an obvious stride in civiliza- 
tion ; while to propel an aeroplane by human 
muscle is simply impossible. 

Greater leisure ought to result from the per- 
formance of mechanical tasks and menial offices 
by machinery. But does it ? Increase of out- 
put is often secured instead. " Speeding up " 
is a term invented in America ; and humanity 
can thus become more enslaved and desperately 
driven than before. This is, or ought to be ; 
the real meaning of the limitation of output 
insisted on by Trade Unions. And when it 
is doubtful whether things are wanted or not, 
such limitation may be legitimate : in peace 
time it may be possible to have over-production. 
But when the things are vitally necessary, when 
they are needed to save the life-blood of your 
fellows, all such artificial limitation of the power 
of machinery becomes criminal. The whole 
nation must be aware that munitions and sup- 
plies of every kind are really needed now ; 
and class legislation, like mere party obstruc- 
tion and artificially hostile criticism, must be 
suspended. 

The less of such obstruction and criticism 
that need be renewed after a return to normal 
times, the better for the nation. The entire 
atmosphere of production needs purifying by 
a more wholesome breath. At present manu- 
facturing processes are smothered in the dust 



224 THE FUTURE 

of recent strife, bound and hampered by 
restrictions founded on mistrust, and choked by 
the noxious gases of greed and selfishness. 
There is now a chance for better relations 
between capital and labour — as an outcome of 
joint sacrifice for a common end ; and there is 
some hope that ideas of universal service for the 
good of the Community, and especially a keener 
realization of the fact that human life and 
welfare are the real objects of all exertion, may 
permeate and reform and re-invigorate the 
land. 

Infant Mortality 

The monotony of environment and absence 
of leisure, and consequent succumbing to 
temptation, may swamp some genius which 
otherwise would enrich the nation ; but the 
unnecessary slaughter which goes on hourly 
among infants must destroy the chance of much 
more. We have learned that young life is itself 
an asset to the Community, even apart from 
exceptional possibilities and promise. Given 
favourable conditions for development and 
education, every other child born into the world 
seems likely to promise notable service ; — else 
how comes it that the sons of peers so 
frequently blossom into Diplomatists and Civil 
Servants and able Governors and holders of 
important positions under the Crown ? 

Clearly the present state of infant mortality 
is a disgrace to the Community ; fortunately 
it is felt to be so, and remedies are being 
sought. The present state of stress may 
hasten reform. Motherhood should be better 
protected than at present, and education in 
the management of children should be wide- 
spread. Indeed instruction in elementary 



OTHER HOME REFORMS 225 

physiology, generally, would conduce to greater 
respect for the body and dimmish the ills due 
to its maltreatment. Compulsory school attend- 
ance too soon after illness is another danger 
to infants. 

Position of Women 

One more of the welcome changes which 
must follow the war is that women will surely 
not have to revert to their old unrecognized 
political position. We have had quite enough 
of a nation which systematically underrates and 
suppresses its own womenfolk, making them 
take a merely subservient position, and treat- 
ing all other women with disrespect and 
barbarity. The exclusion of women from due 
recognition, and the mean estimation in which 
they have been held, is responsible for much 
evil. It is perhaps a curious outcome of war 
that women should come more to the front, 
but so it is, — in every department their help 
and influence are more and more gratefully 
recognized, — indeed the one bright spot in the 
hideous blunder of the Crimea was the 
emergence of Florence Nightingale. 

Women have once more shown that they can 
take their share in war preparation, and in 
national labour and suffering and achievement, 
and in service near the front ; while they were 
already engaged usefully in civic and municipal 
enterprises. War does not spare women 
vicariously — it does not even spare them per- 
sonally, as we may have thought and hoped 
that it did — and they are entitled to a voice 
in the affairs which lead to or which avoid war. 
Some of them, in a too recent past, have been 
terribly irritating, but the wisdom of the best 



226 THE FUTURE 

must be trusted to hold in check or at least 
to counterbalance the impudence and folly 
of the worst. Besides, they have made some 
amends by wise and patriotic counsel and 
activity in face of real danger. Clamour and 
violence, in past frivolous times, have done 
their cause much harm ; but in spite of 
the antics of a minority the wise instincts 
of womanhood can no longer be ignored or 
treated as a negligible asset in the government 
of a State. Daughter nations of the Empire, 
and independent States of America, have tried 
experiments from which we can well learn ; and 
surely the present time will not be allowed 
to pass, until artificial and unnatural dis- 
abilities are removed, and opportunity be 
given to all properly qualified citizens to 
take a recognized and official part in work 
which already they share and often largely 
influence. 

It has for some time been noteworthy how 
far more eagerly women put themselves under 
educational influences than do men. Of the 
few who enter professions, or become Scholars, 
it would be impertinent to speak ; I speak only 
of the average. They form the majority of an 
audience at any lecture, or at a not imme- 
diately professional or too technical oppor- 
tunity for receiving education. Their minds 
are developing and their spirit rising to 
an unprecedented extent. To them always 
has humanity looked for training in its 
youth : to them it will be looking also for 
training in its age. The faults of emancipation 
and the exuberance of political youth may be 
upon them just now, but they are striving 
for fight, they are pressing towards the dawn, 
and their loud and sometimes discordant utter- 



OTHER HOME REFORMS 227 

ances are but the birth-pangs of a sane and 
noble future. 

" For, when the people speaks loudly, it is 
from being strongly possessed either by the 
Godhead or the Demon ; and he who cannot 
discover the true spirit from the false, hath no 
ear for profitable communion." 



Imagine for a moment that, when peace returns to England, 
we could retain undiminished that sense of unity and that 
self-devotion which have been evoked by war, and could use 
them wisely in all their strength, if only for ten years, to make 
England, morally and socially, all that it might be. Why, it 
might become, for itself, almost what Shakespeare called it, 
a "second Eden," and, for others, a light to lighten the 
nations. — A. C. Bradley. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

CONCLUSION 

WE live in great and invigorating times, 
when long-dormant energies are set 
free, and revolutionary changes can be 
made, — times which may be a turning-point 
in the history of the world. If so the cost 
may be justified : though the full cost, direct 
and indirect, has not yet been, probably cannot 
be, estimated. Toil and sacrifice, grief and 
pain, are always necessary and inevitable pre- 
parations for a period of special development 
and spiritual outpouring. The Christian revela- 
tion itself was not accomDlished without 
Calvary. Gethsemane preceded Pentecost. 

Seers and sensitives have known intuitively 
that great events were being foreshadowed, they 
felt the coming of the present time, and have 
heralded the advent of a new era. The conflict 
is not solely material, the whole psychic atmo- 
sphere is troubled, and the powers of good are 
arrayed against the forces of evil. To suppose 
that human powers and forces exhaust the cate- 
gory, is to take a limited and purblind — a 
strictly sensory — view of the universe. Man- 
kind is co-operating with higher influences — 
either consciously or unconsciously — co-operat- 
ing on both sides ; and from the point of view 
of the evolution and progress of humanity on 

228 



CONCLUSION 229 

this planet there has been real risk of a check 
and a reverse. Freedom might have been 
destroyed, a highly organized material Kultur 
might have assumed sway, and the advance of 
humanity in a spiritual direction would have 
been set back for centuries. The conflict has 
been more serious, and the untoward result 
more possible, than has been widely perceived. 
Those who believe in a Divine government 
of the world may have felt assured that all 
would be well, that right must triumph in the 
end ; and so it may, but the victory was far 
from certain : there were times when the 
balance terribly oscillated. Divine government 
differs intensely from simple conceptions of it : 
it does not act as the natural man expects. It 
is not overbearing and dominating, but per- 
suasive and auxiliary. It does not keep things 
right by main force, nor set them right arti- 
ficially. It calls continually for human co- 
operation and effort, and it never overpowers 
or chokes free will. 

That deadly gift — symbolized in the early 
chapters of Genesis as the knowledge of good 
and evil and the power of conscious choice 
between them — is no pictorial semblance or 
imaginary equipment : it is real, and salutary, 
and alarming. At any moment the human 
race might have decided to go wrong, or by 
weakness of resistance and abstention from 
taking pains might allow the power of the 
devil to get the upper hand. There was a 
real risk, a genuine anxiety. Help was avail- 
able, but only in response to heartfelt longing, 
only accessible to the demand of a good will. 
It becomes active only in response to what we 
call prayer. Mental and spiritual supineness 
would have left us dependent on material 



230 THE FUTURE 

preparation alone, and we should have been 
overwhelmed by our enemies. 

The affairs of this planet are surely being 
more and more handed over to conscious 
humanity. More and more are we becoming the 
guiding and directing principle in this sublunary 
sphere. We may do all we can, exert ourselves 
to the utmost, and then, if we realize our lack 
of sufficient power and need of extra help, we 
may ask for it. It will not be forced upon us. 
Our own good will is essential. If we are ready 
to place it in harmony with the Divine will — 
not in a spirit of passivity and acquiescence 
alone, but of work and effort and real sym- 
pathetic exertion, — if we are ready to enter on 
that service which never enslaves but leaves 
us in perfect freedom, — then indeed assistance 
is forthcoming and we cannot be finally 
overcome . 

Freedom is the watchword of humanity, this 
it is which was conferred upon us by Divine 
Charter which may not be revoked. With all 
the pains and penalties attached, we have it ; 
and if we — poor struggling insects — determine 
madly to inflict death and torture on each 
other, we may. Not God nor all His angels will 
stop us, — no, not though we inflict scourging 
and utmost horrors on the incarnate Son. 

People ask despairingly sometimes why man- 
made evils are permitted, why, if Divine inter- 
position is a reality, they are not stopped 
by supernatural force. They do not understand 
the conditions. Free-will, for better for worse, 
has been granted to the human race ; and a 
Divine Treaty cannot be torn up. The privilege 
has been granted to us to be not slaves but 
sons ; the long education of history to this end 
is behind us, the still longer education of the 



CONCLUSION 231 

future is before us ; and not only for indi- 
viduals but for the whole human race on this 
planet, if it chooses, there remains a magni- 
ficent era. The will of God shall yet be done 
on earth, some day, when it has become the 
human will likewise. In no other way can 
it be done ; and this present distress is moving 
us all nearer to the time — long looked forward 
to, and alas ! still distant, but approaching — 
when the eyes of all mankind shall be open 
to spiritual truths, when all shall serve Him from 
the least to the greatest, and when the earth 
shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the 
waters cover the sea. 



INDEX TO QUOTATIONS 



PAGE 

6 ' ' The fact that the sense of 

community " 

7 " the essential principle " 



7 " The binding cord " . 

8 " Let us together " . 

8 "We may reasonably hail" 

8 " All ages, all the wise " 
II "All men, at least here in 

England " 
19 "The idea, peculiar to the 

nineteenth century " 
23 " No cultured European 

nation " 
23 " Consequently we find 

Machiavelli " 

28 ' ' notre force " 

28 " Divine must be " 

31 " The sword, as the sword " 

32 " by the soul Only " . 

33 " Prussian victories are 

secured " 
42 "Everything which is des- 
perately immoral" 



Kant. E. Caird's Critical 

Philosophy of Kant, ii. 350 
Prof. J. H. Muirheadj^TTwa/z 

Philosophy in Relation to 

the War 
Hegel, Phil. of Right, 

p. 245 n. 
Hegel, quoted by E. Caird, 

p. 78 
Kant, Religion within the 

Limits of Reason, Pt. III. 
Fichte, 14th Address, fin. 
Von Htigel, The Quest, April 

I9I5 

Bergson, Hibbert Journal, 

April 191 5 
Prof. Cramb, Germany and 

England 
E. de Selincourt, English 

Poets and the National 

Ideal 
Verhaeren, La Multiple 

Splendeur 
Wordsworth, Sonnet xxvi. 
Wordsworth, Letter to Capt. 

Pas ley, 181 1 
Wordsworth, Sonnet xi. 
Nietzsche, Thoughts out of 

Season 
Wordsworth, pamphlet on 

The Convention of Cintra, 

1809 



233 



234 



THE WAR AND AFTER 



PAGE 

57 " a kind of instinct " . 
62 "In academic circles " 



73 " Happy are all free 

nations " 
*j6 " Our wills are ours " 



78 Influence ot calm weather H 



86 " We look around upon the 
larger life " 

94 " Statesmanship would be 
easy ' ' 



99 ' ' These war - lovers are 

creatures " 
100 " The State is no academy " 

102 "As long as guilty actions 
thrive " 

106 " Everywhere Germans 
were welcomed " 

in " Some of their own mili- 
tarist fanatics " 

125 "Shall I not visit" . 

130 "We have seen our enemies" 

133 " Blow out, you bugles " . 

133 "To you young men " 

136 " When history records " . 
136 " much remains to conquer 
still " 



Emerson, English Traits. 
Speech at Manchester 

Prof. W. J. Ashley's pam- 
phlet The War and its 
Economic Aspects 

Mrs. Browning, The Court 
Lady 

Tennyson, In Memoriam (In- 
troductory Section) 

' Plotinus, Enn. v. 2-3, quoted 
by Myers in Human Per- 
sonality, vol. ii. p. 291 

Wordsworth, Immortality 
^Tennyson, In Mem., xcv. 

Sir Henry Jones, The Im- 
manence of God and the 
Individuality of Man 

"The Comments of Bag- 
shot," Westminster Gazette, 
1908 (probably by Mr. 
Spender) 

H. G. Wells, The Peace of 
the World, p. 19 

Treitschke, Lectures on 
Politics 

Wordsworth, The Convention 
of Cintra 

Science Progress, April 191 5 

A. Clutton-Brock, Thoughts 

on the War 
Jer. v. 29 

The Arbitrator, May 19 15 
Rupert Brooke, Fugitive 

Pieces. See also p. 92 
Lowes Dickinson, pamphlet, 

After the War, p. 18 
E. de Selincourt 
Milton, To Cromwell 



INDEX TO QUOTATIONS 

PAGE 

141 " Unto each man his handi- 
work " 



235 



158 "Commerce is an occupa- 
tion " 

162 " When a man chooses for 
himself" and " Liberty 
has its price " 

168 " For years attention has 
been called " 

170 " God save the people " 

180 "But who shall so forecast 

the years " 
183 "The word 'honour' when 

applied " 
183 " The man who feels no 

regret ' ' 
194 " And here is a lesson " 
194 "If after being released " . 

196 " How can we have time 

for war ? ' ' 
206 "The first end to be 

secured " 
208 " Modern Germany has 

made obvious " 

210 "no nation has paid more 

dearly " 
215 " Tasks in hours of insight ' ' 
227 " For, when the people 

speaks " 



Swinburne, Songs before Sun- 
rise, " Super Flumina 
Babylonis ." The special 
reference is to Mazzini 

Ruskin, Unto This Last 

E. de S&incourt, English 
Poets and the National 
Ideal 

The New Statesman, April 10, 

1915 

Ebenezer Elliott, People' 's 

Anthem 
Tennyson, In Memoriam, I. 

Looking towards Peace, issued 

by Society of Friends 
Wordsworth, The Convention 

of Cintra 
Dr. Sarolea 
Milton, Second Defence of the 

People of England 
A. Clutton-Brock, Thoughts 

on the War, p. 85 
Wordsworth, The Convention 

of Cintra 
Count Hermann Keyserling, 

Hibbert Journal, April 

1915 
Dr. Sarolea, The Anglo- 
German Problem (19 12) 
Matthew Arnold, Morality 
Wordsworth, The Convention 
of Cintra 



INDEX 



Abbe Noel, 29 

Advent, 203 

Advertisements, 217 

Agents, 124-5 

American help, 101, 1 16-18, 

147 
Armenia, 30, 77, 93, 119 
Arnold, Matthew, 89, 215 
Artists, 17 

Ashley, Professor W. J., 62 
Asquith, Rt. Hon. H., 199 
Atheism, 21, 56, 91 
Austria, vii, 31, 77, 209 

Baal, 50. See Devil worship 
" Bagshot," 40, 94, 186 
Barbarism, in. See Savagery 
Bargaining, 132 
Beck, Hon. J. M., vi 
Beethoven, 48 
Begbie, Harold, 85, 127 
Belgian neutrality, 29, 47, 107 
Belgium, 27, 28, 50, 72, 98, 

109, 206 
Bennett, Arnold, 99 
Bereavement, 84 
Bergson, 19 
Bernhardi 65, 66 
Birth of Christ, 203 
Blatchford, Robert, 175 
Bourtzeff, 196 
Boycotting, 116, 147, 148 
Boy Scout, 139, 145, 167 
Bradley, A. C, 42, 227 
Brereton, Cloudesley, 212 



British Empire, 52, 70 
British Fleet, 200 
Brooke, Rupert, 92, 133 
Brotherhood, 120, 179 
Browning, 147 
Browning, E. B., 73, 183 
Brutality, 108. See Savagery 
Bryce, Viscount, 201 
Bulgaria, 30, 93, 1 19, 204, 213 
Bureaucracy, 69, 79 

Cadbury, Edward, 170 

Calm weather, 78 

Carlyle, 41 

Carpenter, Edward, 168, 197 

Cathedrals, 177, 178 

Cavendish, 188 

Chamberlain, Austen, 46 

Chambers, T. G., 55 

Christendom, 24, 43, 120, 140 

Christianity, 131, 228 

Civilian organization, 150 

Civilization, 86 

Clutton-Brock, 60, 61, 194 

Coleridge, 163 

Colonization, 52, 67, 68, 69, 70 

Commerce, neutral, 97 

Constantinople, 205, 213 

Co-operation, 54, 192, 229 

Cotton, 97 

Cowardice, 108 

Cramb, Prof., 22, 25, 73, 74 

Creative thought, 17 

Cromwell, 30 

Cycles of recurrence, 15, 16, 87 



237 



238 



THE WAR AND AFTER 



Dardanelles, 205 
Darwinism, 53-6 
Democracy, 152, 222 
Denmark, 31, 78 
Denunciations, 123 
Derby, Lord, 168 
Despotism, 77 
Determinism, 19 
Devil-worship, 29, 50, 91 
Dickinson, Lowes, 133, 161 
Diplomacy, 66, 182 
Disarmament, 193 
Dislike, 76 
Dostoevski, 212 
Drink, 163, 175 
Dulness, 138, 142, 164 

Earthquakes, 83, 96 
Education, 60, 153, 185, 190, 226 
Efficiency, 89, 90, 149, 153, 

189, 191 
Einstein, Prof., 49 
Eliot, Dr., 102 
Emerson, 57, 67 
Environment, 55, 222 
Ether, 18 

Fallacies, 53-8 
Faraday, 88, 188, 221 
Federation, 51 
Fichte, 8, 185 
Fisher, H. A. L., 202 
Fiume, 205 
Football, 112, 120 
Forth Bridge, 177 
Frankland, Prof. P., 189, 191 
Frederick II, 65, 77 
Freedom, 46, 196, 230 
Free Trade, 200 

Galsworthy, 115 
Garibaldi, 97 



Genius, undiscovered, 220 

German Colonies, 210 

German Empire, 205, 209 

German Navy, 209 

German science, 49, 189, 191 

Germany, old, 3, 52 

Gilbert, 76 

Gladstone, 72 

Goethe, 48 

Goldschmidt, Dr. E., 49 

Goodwill, 119 

Graham, Stephen, 212 

Greece, 213 

Green, T. H., 138 

Grey, Sir Edward, 119 

Haeckel, 18, 22 

Hate, 129 

Hegel, 7 

Heine, 22 

Heligoland, 209, 213 

Helmholtz, 48 

Heroism, 138 

Hertz, 49 

Holstein, 31, 207, 209 

Homicidal mania, 85 

Honour, 48, 66, 106, 108, 117, 

127, 181, 183 
Hugel, Baron von, 9, 10, 68, 69 
Humour, 109 
Hypocrisy, 44, 75, 76, 128 

Ideals, 46 

India, 68 

Indignation, 125 

Infant mortality, 160, 224 

International police, 145, 146 

Invasion, 98 

Italy, 97, 106, 205 

f Accuse, 129, 130 
Jacks, Prof. L. P., 63 
James, Henry, 71 



INDEX 



239 



Jones, Prof. Sir H., 5 
Jordan, Starr, 16 1 
Joy in work, 177 

Kaiser, 10, 77, 80, 1 10 # 

Kant, 5, 6, 8 
Keane, Dr. A. H., 10 
Keyserling, Count Hermann, 176 
Kiel Canal, 209, 213 
King David, 76 
Kropotkin, Prince, 114 
Kultur, 74> 89, 91, 92, 99, 186 

Labour, 158, 163, 165, 168, 170, 

177, 223 
Labour members, 119 
Labour Party, 179 
Labour troubles, 155 
Lankester, Sir E. Ray, 49 
Leisure, 222 
Liberty, 162 
Lincoln, Abraham, 101 
Lister, 118 
London, 216 
Louvain, 22 
Lunacy, 85 
Ltisitania, 90, 96 
Lyttelton, Hon. E., 71 

Macedonia, 30, 93 
Machiavelli, 11, 23 
Machinery, 19, 223 
March-Phillips, Lisle, 176 
Mazzini, 97, 141, 184 
Megalomania, 85 
Mercenaries, 94 
Militarism, 167 
Milton, 30, 105, 113, 136, 175, 

194, 196 
Modern war, 143 
Mohammedanism, 25 
Mommsen, 33 



Mons, 26 

Morris, William, 169, 176 

Motherhood, 224 

Muirhead, Prof. J. H., 4, 5, 13 

Murray, Prof. Gilbert, vi 

Naboth's vineyard, 31 
Nansen, 202 
Napoleon, 25, 36, 45 
National anthem, 116 
Nationality, 184 
Neutral commerce, 97 
Nietzsche, 33-41, no, 138 
Nightingale, Florence, 225 
Non-resistance, 114, 131 

Organization. See Efficiency 
Outcome, 137 

Pacifism, 121-5, 131 

Palestine, 203, 213, 214 

Palmerston, 63 

Party politics, 140, 217-20 

Peace conference, 1 1 

Picton, Harold, 47 

Pilate, 122 

Planck, Prof, von, 49 

Plotinus, 78 

Plunkett, Sir Horace, 160 

Poison gases, 88 

Poland, yy, 210 

Professors, German, 126 

Prussia, yy, 208 

Ramsay, Sir W., 106 

Recruiting, 95 

Red Cross movement, 216 

Relativity, principle of, 49 

Religion, 23, 24, 45, 74 

Revelation, 124, 228 

Rheims, 178 

Ring and the Book, itf 



240 



THE WAR AND AFTER 



Roberts, Lord, 52 
Roosevelt, 101 
Roumania, 204, 213 
Royal Institution, 188 
Rule, " Britannia ! " 73 
Ruskin, 139, 157 
Russia, 77, 205, 210 

Sarolea, Dr. C, vi, 64, 66, 67, 

79, 98, 103, 194, 207 
Savagery, 3, 90, 105, 108, 204 
Saving, 174 

Schleswig. See Holstein 
Science, neglect of, 187-92 
Sedgwick, Mrs., no 
Self-interest, 93, 96 
Selincourt, Prof, de, 2, 23, 136, 

162 
Serbia, 204, 213 
Shakespeare, 82, 104 
Shaw, Bernard, 34, 36, 93, 139, 

160 
Sheep-fold parable, 122 
Shepherds and Wise Men, 203 
Shipwrecks, 83 
Sidney, 118 
Simplicity, 182 
Small nations, 199, 201, 202 
Smyrna, 213 
Social experiment, 203 
Socialists, 179 
Speeding up, 223 
Struggle for existence, 53 
Sullivan, 76 
Sully, Prof, 61 
Suppuration, 118 
Swinburne, 141 
Syria, 213 



Tante^ no 

Taube, 78 

Temple cleansing, 115, 119, 122 

Temptation, 91 

Tennyson, 51, 76, 78, 80 

Thackeray, 63 

Thrift, 171 

Titanic, 96 

Tolstoy, 212 

Treitschke, 25, 27, 73, 74, 

100 
Tribulation, 132 
Troy, 87 
Tyrolese, vii, 31 

Unfair practices, 112 

Union, 51 

Unjust steward, 90, 187 

Venizelos, 213 
Verhaeren, 28 
Volunteers, 95 

Waldenses, 30 

War Loan, 174 

Watt, James, 221 

Webb, Sidney, 160 

Weekly wage, 172 

Wells, H. G., 99 

Wise Men and shepherds, 203 

Wolff, K. F., 37, 38 

Women, position of, 225 

Wordsworth, ix, 28, 31, 42, 78, 
102, 118, 206, 227 

Workers' Educational Associa- 
tion, v, 59 

Zeppelins, .78 



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